Various Artists - Not So Humdrum

The 2nd Aberrant Sydney Compilation. For a second late Saturday night odyssey to the land down under, the second Sydney compilation from that hard-working Bruce Griffiths, and it’s full of good material. Not So Humdrum aimed to use leftover Suicide Squad tracks from the first compilation, which had been mooted as a double at one stage, with some of the other 1984 vintage bands. While there is only one semi-thrasher (Vigil-Anti), there are lots of garage stuff (Rocks, Wrong Kind Of Stone Age) and other classic punk styles (Suicide Squad, Exserts, Happy Hate Me Nots), but the most ‘zapping’ tracks belong to Itchy Rats, who will really grow on you. Not only no weak songs on Not So Humdrum but also no average or just-ok material; a killer compilation of down-to-earth but in-your-face punk rock gems from Sydney. And the best thing is; when you listen to it, every next song seems to be better than the previous, at the end you're just in awe. Raw un-precious punk rock; I think that only Australians can do it this good. From memory the title was a riposte to Molly Meldrum's Humdrum segment on the Australian version of Countdown.

Various Artists - Flowers From The Dustbin

Looking back over Sydney fanzines from the '80s there was a hell of a lot of punk bands in the harbour city. A hell of a lot of bands who really didn't get around to documenting themselves. If it weren't for Bruce Griffiths' three Aberrant compilations even more of those bands would just be a faded memory. The first Aberrant compilation, and the first release by the Aberrant label. Hand-stamped numbered edition of 750. The cover is a large black and white 'poster' in the vein of releases on the CRASS label, featuring lyrics, band bios and over 160 photos. The run started with Flowers From The Dustbin in November 1983, its title inspired by a line in God Save The Queen. Setting out to capture some of the bands who had been playing around that year it was successful, but as Griffiths later noted "a month after release just two bands remained and one musician was dead." While The Kelpies, Positive Hatred and World War XXIV would have more stuff released by Aberrant, and Box Of Fish went on to put records out on Method, this was it for Velocette, Queen Anne's Revenge (who became CHAOS) and What?!! (who only ever played one gig anyway!). The foldout poster sleeve for this was a real labour of love, with over 160 band photos, posters, lyrics and band histories.

Re-released by French label Ripost in a standard LP cover with different front cover artwork.