ASSOCIATES: FOURTH DRAWER DOWN (1981)
1) White Car In Germany; 2) A
Girl Named Property; 3) Kitchen Person; 4) Q Quarters; 5) Tell Me Easter's On
Friday; 6) The Associate; 7) Message Oblique Speech; 8) An Even Whiter Car; 9*)
Fearless (It Takes A Full Moon); 10*) Point Si; 11*) Straw Towels; 12*) Kissed;
13*) Blue Soap.
It is hard to surprise anyone by describing an
early 1980s album as «dark and cold». Even the New Romantics, whose basic goals
involved finding fresh new ways to get girls to sleep with them, thrived on
sounding «dark and cold» — the colder you are, the hotter will be the girls
that you are going to get. And, considering how much the Associates' debut was
influenced by the Bowie/Eno team, it would be very easy to dismiss their
further developments on Fourth Drawer
Down as even more bandwagon-jumping.
But during this very brief streak, the
Associates were not really jumping on the bandwagon — on the contrary, they
were helping to build the bandwagon.
First of all, these six singles, first released separately, then knocked together
in a coherent single monster, are wildly experimental. Rankine and Mackenzie
were not interested in simply trading in their post-punk guitar band sound for
a bunch of synthesizers: nearly each of the tracks had to include various sound
effects and overlays that would all contribute to the «authentic eeriness» of
the atmosphere. Second, throughout the working process Mackenzie was feeding
the band his personal disturbance and paranoia — and where it did not seem
enough, they were enhancing the mood with drugs (allegedly, both of the key
members even had to be hospitalized at one point).
In terms of complexity or meticulousness of
production, Fourth Drawer Down does
not stand comparison with The Cure, for instance. But it does not really have
to. Robert Smith's target has always been the arena — his internal anguish had
to be projected over the entire world, and that, by itself, required a
tremendous amount of work so as not to come out as laughable. Mackenzie, on the
other hand, is not singing about the end of the world or about humanity being
forever chained to eternal bleakness, despair, and soul torment. Hence, this
is «chamber-oriented» art-pop, not the «symphony-oriented» brand of Robert
Smith; and most of the sonic waves seem oriented straight at myself, rather
than at occupying the airspace around.
Starting, actually, with the first throbbing
pulses that open ʽWhite Car In Germanyʼ. As your subwoofer threatens to blow
up under the weight of the song's massive «leaden» punch, Mackenzie pours out
waves of lyrical nonsense with such keywords as "cold",
"infirmary", "spies", "surgery", "premature
senility", and, yes, "white car in Germany". Whether it's all
about an ER vehicle or something else is irrelevant: the main aim is to get a shivery,
clinically sterile, living-dead sound, a variety of «morgue muzak», if I may
say so. There is no overexaggerated depression or faked insanity here — it's
simply an anatomical deconstruction of death with no emotional evaluation attached.
None needed, in fact.
ʽWhite Carʼ is one of the album's least
guitar-dependent songs, though; a more typical formula involves some
particular, relatively simple, but catchy, guitar figure, devised by Rankine
and used as the basic anchor — the unnerving voice of your internal doomsayer.
Next come Mackenzie's ice-cold operatic waves, and finally, all the extra
overdubs. It applies to ʽA Girl Named Propertyʼ (where several guitars drone
on, layered across each other, in a disturbingly Crimsonian manner); the
faster-paced, but still living-dead ʽKitchen Personʼ; and ʽMessage Oblique
Speechʼ. ʽQ Quartersʼ pushes the guitar drone into the deep background, keeping
the foreground minimalistic-ambient, with a little bit of pseudo-harpsichord
to ensure that the mood is still flowing. And ʽTell Me Easter's On Fridayʼ
floats on a thin little keyboard riff instead, probably being the closest to generic
«synth-pop» that this record gets.
The original record only included eight songs,
still managing to run for a good fourty minutes because of the length;
however, the six bonus tracks on the CD reissue, bringing back all the nearly
lost B-sides, add a brief epic touch — the extra twenty-five minutes will probably
just irritate you if you find yourself incapable of «getting in the spirit»,
but for those who like a solid morgue-oriented album from time to time, ʽPoint
Siʼ, with its quasi-annoying buzzing guitar groove, and ʽStraw Towelsʼ, one of
the album's fastest songs, will be fine additional touches to the sonic panorama.
(The only true misstep is the final number, ʽBlue Soapʼ, which features
Mackenzie singing accappella through a megaphone or something, set against a
backdrop of dripping water and what sounds like a faraway orchestra rehearsal —
gimmicky and quite meaningless).
It is thoroughly not «my kind of album» — quite
inevitably, I find myself bored each time I get to the third or fourth song on
it. Me, I'd rather hear one more time about the end of the world than be
reminded, in such an intricate manner, of the existence of the cold-room. But
if that's the point, Fourth Drawer Down
definitely succeeds in making it — don't forget to throw on a sweater or
something before loading the record into your CD player. Oh, and the melodies?
I'd say they are on the same level as with The
Affectionate Punch: modestly catchy «growers» with little, if any,
«gripping» power. Oh, and the sound effects? Well, there's typewriters, coughing,
singing through vacuum cleaner hoses, probably lots of other stuff — no string
quartets or nightingales, as could be guessed — it all contributes to some atmosphere, I guess. I could turn my thumbs down,
theoretically, but they seem to have been frozen in the thumbs up position.
Check "Fourth Drawer Down" (MP3) on Amazon
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