Search - Associates :: Affectionate Punch

Finally Album 1 on CD As it Should Be

Gregory Kerwin | SF CA | 08/17/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Like many in the US, I first became aware of the Associates beyond-hip cinematic universe and Billy Mackenzie's unique and totally wild voice through the twin dance epics Party Fears Two and Club Country, which were played sparingly on college radio and in New Wave discos and floating underground parties. These two hits can be found on the Associates masterpiece Sulk, their third album. I searched out the group and turned up Affectionate Punch, the Associates' spare and minimal first album, which is totally unlike the overheated, overwrought, overproduced and utterly indispensable Sulk.



Where Sulk is loaded with layers of keyboards, vocals compressed within an inch of their life, synthesized effects and artificial sounds, Affectionate Punch has a bare-bones guitar-based sound. But what a guitar--it's Prof. Rankine's Riff Clinic. And, of course, with Mackenzie whooping and soaring away, as different from all the rest of the guitar-based Post Punk of 1980 as Sulk was from the New Romantic offerings of its time. Affectionate Punch or Sulk: if it's the Associates, it's cinematic, and what both of the albums do is take you someplace far away, creating a gorgeous city in your mind that you inhabit with only the coolest, most beautiful people. No one ever heard a Billy before nor will they again.



Affectionate Punch's new remastering separates the instruments and beautifully defines Rankine's bass and guitar licks from the drums and voice. It all sounds more expert, somehow, much more in control. Mackenzie's voice was always the star and still is. But I love the grinding guitar and in the new mix Rankine's effortlessly swinging riffs rise to meet Billy's vocal challenge. The new mix is bright and crisp, accessible, satisfying; and the CD packaging with its lyrics booklet and original art is quite nice, too.



Affectionate Punch sounded to the American ear in the early 1980s like Progressive Rock, in an arty vein with Roxy, Bowie, and Peter Gabriel. Prog-Rock aficionados added this and early Simple Minds to their King Crimson, Yes, Rush, Jethro Tull collections. Who knew--Billy Mackenzie and Alan Rankine weren't doing Prog or Post-Punk. This is Cabaret! in an electronic private club on Planet Zed. It took a decade to figure that out. There's something wonky, too-serious and unhip about the Art Rock records, with the exception of Ferry and Bowie, always the most detached-seeming about their music-making. Without the resources and the carefully-managed public personas of those two, Mackenzie and Rankine poured all the hip/cool inside them onto the tracks of this first masterful record.



It's the little things I love: the boiling lead bass lines. That rippling bass opens the album with Amused As Always, then a chime of Rankine-guitar echoes way in the back, and Mackenzie's voice flies in overhead. It's not really an intro to the record or to the band--it's all here, all at once. There's the indispensable, throwaway solo in Logan Time, a throwaway song, sci-fi or silly, hooky all over. Paper House's soothing intro, again the trebly bass leading you in above a few light chord strums, changes quickly to a Celtic jig-guitar riff that amps up the juice. Ultimately Paper Houses is a mysteriously hymnlike ballad with dreamy not-to-be lyrics that fade out on Mackenzie's little musing whoops. Listening to this again, I imagine I'm in the darkest corner of Cabaret Associates, watching from a distance while these guys lean against a piano, focusing on their pale spotlighted faces, trying to get inside their minds. It's a very private song.



Strangely, Transport to Central is one of the most accessible songs, a chilling Manchurian Candidate lyric laid over guitar sludge and ominous explosive echoes. But I can also believe that Mackenzie may have been singing about himself, his fantasy that he could manipulate whatever's on his outside, if not his inside: "His jawline's not perfect, but that can be altered." This is his desire for transformation...or, just a futurist's vision.



A Matter of Gender is another high point on this record with its birdlike, pointy little guitar picks mixed way back, unlike any of the other songs. Mackenzie: singing about attractions he can't control, including to women, betrayal of the opposite gender? It's bitter and feels like a betraying song, especially in the line "Thou shall not commit the 7th Commandment," the Betrayal Commandment. He chides "Marguerite" about not getting him and the world he lives in--his world is a world without borders. Who's betraying whom, indeed. Would I Bounce Back has this boogie-blues business at the end that is so much fun, and it lightens the atmosphere considerably. As does A, the alphabet song. The extra songs included on this reissue add You Were Young to the canon, not available on any of the other new reissues, a close-to-straight-up rocker."

25 years and still fresh.

A. Galashan | Philadelphia, PA | 09/10/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Like many performers who have tragically passed away before their time, the last twenty five years have seen vocalist Billy MacKenzie elevated to a minor deity by scores of unquestioning Associates devotees.



But this first Associates album was recorded when the equal talents of fellow-Associate Alan Rankine were allowed to showcase themselves. And what talent indeed! It is Rankine's sublime guitar hooks and bass lines that have caused me to replay my old audio cassette until paper-thin these last twenty five years.



The Affectionate Punch was remixed in 1982 and the remix became the official release. The results were disappointing. The remix managed to tone down Rankine's guitars to an almost inaudible level and Billy's helium-high voice takes center stage. It is an over-worked effort and they should have left the original alone.



For many years the masters for the original version were 'lost' (or destroyed by MacKenzie as was rumored), but a second master tape was found in a pressing plant in Europe a few years back and the results are a breath-taking reminder of why this album has been cherished by me these many years.



The Affectionate Punch and Magazine's Real Life changed the face of music then and have since stood the test of time. Buy them both!"

On An Island Called Scotland

Roger G. Williams | VA | 01/05/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Where on earth did this come from?



Spring, 1981. I read a review of this that referenced Foxx-era Ultravox, Joy Division, Bowie, Roxy, whatever. Intrigued I searched and found it.



There is still to this day nothing I have ever heard so wonderfully inspired, amateur, unique, soaked in its influences as this LP and I have listened to A LOT of music. Billy's voice is so... committed, inspired, passionate, dispassioante, but mostly so amazing that it has always sent chills down the spine.



OK, to the reissue: The mix is great, and mostly elevates the simple bass lines as the key elements in defining the melody. It shows Alan's guitar work to be sublime embellishments rather than the driving force of the tunes. Mostly it brings elements formerly buried to the fore. There is even a moment in "Boys Keep Swinging" (nice addition) when the music goes all quiet that you can even hear the germination of the soft "outro" guitar chords from the latter era "Take Me to the Girl" (I realize Alan was not on this one of course).



I remember the Spring of '81 and playing this for my brother who was more into playing in R&B and Rn'R bands. I played a bunch of current "new wave" LPs and he was not impressed. When I put this on he stopped dead and said "Now that's unique. who is this?"



I've felt the same way ever since. Sure "Sulk" is a masterpiece in many ways, and I now skip over "Logan Time" and "Transport to Central," but things like "A Matter of Gender," "Deeply Concerned," and "Amused As Always" still sound like no other hyper-excited musicians inthralled with their joyous music that I have never heard.



You should too. Don't deprive yourself of one ofthe all time creative milestones."