Music that still sounds like "the future"
Peter L Perez | Berkeley, CA United States | 09/21/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This collection of songs still amazes me--it sounds like it's still the music of the future, 19 years after its original release! The musical influences on the Associates are the least obvious on this collection of songs--maybe a dash of Kraftwerk here, and a little dab of Joy Division there, but not much else. A MUST for any lover of the post-punk music that still sounds innovative today (think PIL's "Second Edition"). And the 5 bonus tracks (b sides & unreleased) are fantastic too. Any fan of Belle & Sebastian should be intrigued to hear the kind of music their teacher, Alan Rankine, was creating when they were practically still in diapers!"
1981's experimental singles in deluxe reissue...
Jason Parkes | Worcester, UK | 04/02/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This expanded take of 1981's compilation Fourth Drawer Down (whose title referred to the location of the 'Quiet Life' herbal tablets which Billy & co liked to take just over the recommended dosage to evoke the feeling found in the songs here...- see the book The Glamour Chase)is one that has been co-ordinated and digitally remastered by former Associates bassist Michael Dempsey & along with the Sulk-reissue is the best reissue of Associates material. This edition comes with sleevenotes from Tom Doyle and the complete tracks from the era, bar their cover of Kites which really should have been included (Kites, like Ice Cream Factory remains a track waiting to come on cd, or that definitive Billy-box-set). Associates had just left Fiction after the original version of The Affectionate Punch (1980)- an album they would remix and remodel in 1982. That debut saw them offer an advance on Bowie-Eno-Scott Walker and saw them work with The Cure's Robert Smith- ironically The Cure's Michael Dempsey would join in this period and is one of the writers of The Associate. The Mackenzie/Rankine (or Rankine/Mackenzie) partnership were in potent form here, the tracks contained were indie-singles on Situation Two made with money from prospective record companies who wanted new demos from Associates (...) These songs were recorded in a Withnail&I-style squalor, a joyful hedonism (despite Mackenzie and Rankine being hospitalised!) & with an emphasis on experimentation. The various singles are all here: Tell Me Easter's on Friday(whose intro is very Station to Station & also flipside Straw Towels), the buzzing Message Oblique Speech (a definite relative of Nag Nag Nag and Being Boiled), & the sinister Q-Quarters- a SF-spy dystopia that sounds like films like Alphaville and Liquid Sky would if they had been records. This collection advances on the Berlin: Bowie/Eno-template of Low and "Heroes", Billy working through his influences by covering The Secret Life of Arabia with the BEF & now they made Bowie look aged and took their alien-pop to new levels. The Associate is a bizarre funk song that showcases dazzling keyboards & is syncopated by the screams of Mackenzie & co as cups were smashed over their heads (don't ask...)A Girl Named Property sounds like Scott Walker performing a song from The Cure's Faith and backed by Suicide; while single Kitchen Person has an accelerating beat reminiscent of a chemical rush & odd noises created by a combination of guitar and hoover-attachment (don't ask...) In the post-punk stakes, Associates were up there with Cabaret Voltaire, The Pop Group and Throbbing Gristle- though they opted to shift towards pop...An Even Whiter Car (b-side of Kitchen Person) is a relative of the instrumental tracks on Low/"Heroes"- imagine if Christiane F had been a Sci-Fi film directed by Visconti from a cryogenic cell (& you're getting closer...) It would be the ideal soundtrack for that imaginary film...Even better are the post-punk funk-workouts of Fearless (It Takes a Full Moon) and Kissed, which are moving to the dizzying entryist pop of Sulk (e.g. Club Country, Nude Spoons). The oddity here is Blue Soap, which is Billy singing 'Blue Soap' in the bath (you can hear the running water) while listening to either Kitchen Person or White Car in Germany (hard to make out...)Ahhhhhhhhh...White Car in Germany. The greatest song here and one of Associates key-moments (despite the odd objection from people who see it as a little fascistic & Nietszchean, e.g. that bloke from Hue&Cry); this sounds like where Bowie should have gone after "Heroes" and predicts the territory of stuff like Goldfrapp, Portishead & Tricky (incidentally, did anyone think of Billy Mackenzie when they saw Madonna's American Life video?) White Car is one of the great electronic songs of its time, Rankine's Eno-soundscapes fusing with his experimental-guitar and then Billy's antartic-size vocals & those lovely lines, "Aberdeen's an old place/Dussledorf's a cold place...lisp your way through Zurich, walk on eggs in Munich." The European Canon lead here, wonderful stuff that feels like another imaginary film- an adaptation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra that was 68-hours long and made you feel like a modernist-cyberpunk...Fourth Drawer Down is a great album in its own right, despite being a set of indie-singles between albums; though of couse 1982's Sulk would be even more perfect..."
Track Listings (13) - Disc #1