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Spunk Records goes out on a high: ‘Like a mixtape from your coolest friend’

After 25 years and almost 700 albums, the taste makers who brought Belle and Sebastian and Arcade Fire to Australia are closing down

Curnow with his late friend Kieran Dyson, with whom he created the fanzine that later became Spunk Records.There were moments of transcendence: the wordless choral climax of The Middle East’s Blood; Harding’s strange, hypnotic performance culminating in a rendition of her lovelorn track Horizon, accompanied by Melbourne singer-songwriter Laura Jean, that felt like being frozen in time; Explosions in the Sky playing their 2003 album The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place in full, building from a single, shimmering note to a cacophonous, shattering soundscape. Photograph: Jordan MunnsLocally, Spunk championed Australian artists such as Jack Ladder and Holly Throsby; over the pond, Curnow signed Harding, Nadia Reid and Tiny Ruins as the New Zealand folk scene was exploding. Much of the thrill of those heady early days came from enthusiastic young staffers sharing their discoveries: “I remember [one of them] coming into the office saying, ‘You need to sign this guy Mac DeMarco – he’s the greatest thing ever’,” Curnow says.

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