Fourth Drawer Down
Compilation of 1981 singles by the Associates.
The Associates, a Scottish post-punk and new wave band, saw their 1981 singles for the independent Situation Two label compiled into the album Fourth Drawer Down. Released in October of that year, it gathered the A-sides and B-sides from all five singles. V2 Records later reissued the album in 2000, adding five bonus tracks.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- the Associates
- Released
- October 1981
- Genre
- Post-punk
- new wave
- experimental
- Label
- Situation Two
- Producer
- Mike Hedges; Flood
Facts from the source article.
Track listing
Side one
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | White Car in Germany | 5:28 |
| 2 | A Girl Named Property | 4:56 |
| 3 | Kitchen Person | 4:53 |
| 4 | Q Quarters | 4:55 |
Side two
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Tell Me Easter's on Friday | 4:29 | |
| 6 | The Associate | Billy Mackenzie, Alan Rankine, Michael Dempsey | 5:00 |
| 7 | Message Oblique Speech | 5:35 | |
| 8 | An Even Whiter Car | 4:45 |
Track listing from the source article.
Recording
In July 1981, the Associates appeared in Smash Hits, where singer Billy Mackenzie declared his intention to put out ten singles before the year ended. He planned to fund new recordings with money from rival labels while simultaneously issuing older material. The songs collected on Fourth Drawer Down were darker and more experimental than those on their first album, The Affectionate Punch, though Mackenzie’s lyrics often resisted straightforward meaning.
The single "Tell Me Easter's on Friday" moves with a heavy, pulsing beat and a sad, circling guitar line. "Q Quarters," described by Smash Hits as "desolately beautiful," closes with the lines: "Washing down bodies / Seems to me a dead-end chore / Floors me completely / Beauty drips from every pore." Mackenzie said his grandmother had that job during World War II. For "Kitchen Person," the band used an electric typewriter for rhythm, and Mackenzie sang into a vacuum cleaner tube, earning them Single of the Week from Melody Maker.
The album’s title came from a literal place: the fourth drawer down in a chest at the band’s flat, where they kept herbal relaxant tablets that, taken in handfuls, worked as a sleeping aid and gave a pleasant buzz. The cover photo was shot in the swimming pool of their Oxfordshire recording studio.
Critical reception
Fourth Drawer Down has been well received by music critics, with reviewers commenting on the band's increased experimentalism. NME journalist Richard Cook wrote that the Associates "brutalise form with a purpose," continuing: "In trying to dismantle the accepted notions of organised playing and reconstructing with uncaring regard for accessibility – all these tracks are cluttered, confused and strewn with near-random noise – The Associates reassert their humanity in electric music."
Andy Kellman of AllMusic observed "Those who are familiar with Associates know this because of Mackenzie's operatically soulful voice, [Alan] Rankine's wildly experimental production, and, when used, his atonal utilitarian guitar playing that seems like it's playing the multi-instrumentalist more than he's playing it. Just as there are Smiths fans who listen intently to Johnny Marr's guitar playing and attempt to block out Morrissey's flamboyance, there surely are numerous beings who tune out Mackenzie's crooning to hone in on Rankine's actions.
Those who can appreciate both are in for a real feast, and those who prefer one over the other still have much to sink their teeth into." In a 2016 review, Alastair McKay of Uncut called Fourth Drawer Down "an extraordinary document on which the sense of mystery deepens, and the commitment to sonic experiment becomes more pronounced." Trouser Press noted an overall sense of "determined experimentation" on the album, despite finding it "lessened by the exclusion of certain B-sides in favor of later tracks which reveal Mackenzie's growing preference for pose over accomplishment."
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