The Associates, The Affectionate Punch (Fiction/Universal) 80
With bands like Franz Ferdinand paying homage to post-punk pioneers Josef K, and Orange Juice getting a high-profile reissue, it’s ironic that Scotland’s most commercial, and arguably greatest band remains pretty much unknown in the states. Perhaps the reissue of their 1980 debut The Affectionate Punch will give them their due as the missing link between the dread of PiL and exuberance of ABC, not to mention the template for U2’s The Edge (hear the spiky, cascading riffs on “Paper House”). Alan Rankine and singer Billy MacKenzie met in the 70s as members of a cabaret ensemble called Mental Torture. Influenced by movie soundtracks, Sparks, Bowie, Can, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music and Scott Walker, the duo boldly announced their arrival by covering Bowie’s “Boys Keep Swinging” only months after the original was released in 1979.
Coming off a tour with labelmates The Cure, the band's vision was fully formed, only to evolve more in the studio with cuts like the dramatic "Matter Of Gender" and "Transport To Central." The music seemed both timely and beyond its time, referring to the Teutonic iciness of Bowie and Eno’s Berlin sessions, and anticipating the New Romantics. The sound is stark and sparse, with the drums playing a secondary role of a simple, metronomic beat that lends a hypnotic quality not unlike contemporaries Young Marble Giants, and The Cure’s first singles. Yet Rankine’s imaginative guitar playing added splashes of color to these shadowy songs, while MacKenzie’s vocals are flamboyant, sometimes nearly operatic. "Dogs In The Wild" morphs into a strangely catchy, horn driven amalgam of Kurt Weill and Scott Walker. The Associates were clearly meant to be stars. Yet not even a half dozen brilliantly experimental singles (compiled on 1981’s Fourth Drawer Down, reissued on V2 in 2000) could get them chart action, though they certainly gave Wire's 154 competition for the most creative production, with the assistance of a young Flood. It wasn’t until the velvety, almost sickly sweet pop of Sulk did they briefly get the attention they deserved. As boldly innovative as their later work was, The Affectionate Punch remains for me the most satisfying and visceral, as a band’s seemingly infinite initial promise is almost always more enticing than the reality that’s later manifested.
