The Associates - The Affectionate Punch

All ten songs on The Affectionate Punch are nearly swollen with ambition and swagger, yet those attributes are confronted with high levels of anxiety and confusion, the sound of prowess and hormones converging head-on. It's not always pretty, but it's unflaggingly sensational, even when it slows down. Having debuted with a brazen reduction of David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging" to a spindly rumble, multi-instrumentalist Alan Rankine and vocalist Billy Mackenzie ensured instant attention and set forward with this, their first album. Mackenzie's exotic swoops cover four octaves, from the kind of isolated swagger heard in Bowie's "Secret Life of Arabia" to a falsetto more commonly heard in an opera house than a bar. (Dude sounds like a diva, so proceed with caution if you'd much rather hear a voice in line with PiL's John Lydon or Magazine's Howard Devoto.) Though the subject matter of the duo's songs would later veer into the completely inscrutable, there's some abstract wordplay here that scans like vocal exercises or Scott Walker at his most surreal: "Stencilled doubts spin the spine, Logan time, Logan time"; "If I threw myself from the ninth story, would I levitate back to three"; "His jaw line’s not perfect but that can be altered." Meaningful or not, there's always a sense of great weight. When Mackenzie runs through the alphabet in "A," he could be singing in code about the butterflies of love. Rankine, with help from drummer Nigel Glockler and a background appearance from then label mate Robert Smith, covers most of the other stuff, specializing in spare arrangements that can simultaneously slither and jump, crosscut with guitars that release weary chimes and caustic stabs, as well as the occasional racing xylophone. 

Fated to reside in the popular consciousness as a one-hit combo (they did, in fact, manage three top thirty flurries), and with celebrity fans coming out of the woodwork, the time may be finally ripe to reassess this mercurial Scottish duo. Alchemised from the pairing of Billy Mackenzie's death-defying vocals and Alan Rankine's unconventional instrumentation, The Affectionate Punch was their first major statement of intent in 1980, and remarkably - for such an artefact of its time - age has not withered this 25th anniversary reissue one jot.

Bonding over their love of Berlin Hansa-era Bowie (their first recording adventure - Boys Keep Swinging - is included here as a bonus), the Associates' sound always veered dangerously close to something approaching totalitarian chic. Such flirting was lingua franca for the time, yet what saved the duo were both a sense of impish humour and an innate belief in their own un-tutored talents. Thus, Punch boasts a rude confidence as Billy's swooping and swooning mannerisms are multitracked over audacious arrangements. The only thing that places it as an early 80s artefact is the sound of guitars squeezed through chorus pedals and drums so gated that they sound like cardboard boxes. Otherwise this could be music from Mars; so oddly 'other' is its approach. Mackenzie's voice was already utterly unique in its octave-spanning bravado, but the whole construction just seems like something constrained and constricted to fit studio technology that wasn't ready for the job. Who knows how they'd sound these days?

And the lyrics? Ah, here lay the boys' trump card. Just as the sound is pressed thin by its limitations, so the words seem to strain to express feelings and places not meant to be pinned down by syllables. In turns sexually ambivalent (A Matter Of Gender), violently surreal (The Affectionate Punch), wildly romantic (Even Dogs In The Wild) or just incomprehensible (Logan Time) they spill out like postcards from an imaginary Europe. Half chanson, half krautrock. Totally their own.

The haste and budgetary restraints meant that the follow ups (Fourth Drawer Down and Sulk) were both more acceptably polished and more outlandish. Indeed, their first major label signing saw them packed off to the studio to remix this whole album for re-release - but it now stands as a worthy document on its own. Few bands today would dare to be so audacious...

The Associates – Sulk

To close out Scotland On Saturday I'm offering up one of the smoothist albums ever released.

This edition of Sulk, which was the most common one to find while record shopping throughout the late '80s and '90s, was originally the American issue. Heavy substitution and track reordering; a typical enough move on the part of American companies no matter what the act, resulted in a radically different record. For some strange reason, this European CD issue of the album relied on the American edition, something only finally rectified as part of an overall reissue program in 2000. All this said, while this second edition sacrifices some of the quirky edginess of the original, collecting all the major hit singles that made the band such a distinctive U.K. chart presence in the early '80s certainly isn't a problem at all. The three tracks from the second side of the original album -- the bizarro funk of "It's Better This Way," the swooning hyper-romance of "Partyfearstwo," and the nervy, sped-up rush of "Club Country" -- here lead off the record, followed by the OK-enough remake of Diana Ross' "Love Hangover" and the charming "18 Carat Love Affair." As for the remaining tracks, "Arrogance Gave Him Up," "No," "Skipping," and "Gloomy Sunday" are retained in a much different order, while "Bap de la Bap," "Nude Spoons," and "Nothinginsomethinginparticular" are removed in favour of early single "White Car in Germany" and "The Associate." All changes and switches aside, it's still very much the Associates at probably the best period of their career. Mackenzie's impossibly piercing cabaret falsetto rivals that of obvious role model Russell Mael from Sparks, while Rankine's ear for unexpected hooks and sweeping arrangements turns the stereotypes of early-'80s synth music on their heads. The bass work from ex-Cure member Michael Dempsey isn't chopped liver either, and the result is a messy but wonderful triumph no matter what version is found.

The Associates

The 1980s have often been referred to as the golden age for pop music. There was something brilliant about the kind of song that could become a hit single back then. Songs like ‘Ghosts’ by Japan, ‘O Superman’ by Laurie Anderson and any of those early  Adam & The Ants hits would stand out on the radio today. ‘Party Fears Two’ and ‘Club Country’ by The Associates were two of the most adventurous and unusual singles that made the top 20 in 1982.

The Associates (or simply Associates) were a Scottish post-punk and new wave band, formed in Dundee in 1979 by singer Billy MacKenzie and guitarist Alan Rankine. The group first gained recognition after releasing an unauthorized cover of David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging" as their debut single in 1979, which landed them a contract with Fiction Records. They followed with their debut album The Affectionate Punch in 1980 and the singles collection Fourth Drawer Down in 1981, both to critical praise. They achieved commercial success in 1982 with the UK Top 10 album Sulk and UK Top 20 singles "Party Fears Two" and "Club Country", during which time they were associated with the New Pop movement.