Associates – Fourth Drawer Down – 180 Gram Silver Vinyl Record

Description

Associates – Fourth Drawer Down – 180 Gram Silver Vinyl Record

Fourth Drawer Down gathers the extraordinary run of Associates singles issued by Situation Two during 1981. Billy Mackenzie and Alan Rankine were moving too quickly and too strangely for conventional album logic, using each release to test a new combination of post-punk, art pop, electronics and dramatic vocal performance. Collected together, the eight tracks reveal a coherent period of invention that leads directly toward the breakthrough of Sulk.

“White Car in Germany” opens with an austere keyboard figure and Mackenzie’s unmistakable voice, which can sound intimate, operatic and sardonic inside the same phrase. “A Girl Named Property” is more nervous and percussive, while “Kitchen Person” turns domestic imagery into tense, angular pop. Rankine’s arrangements leave unusual amounts of room around the sounds, making every drum hit, bass movement and electronic accent feel deliberate.

“Q Quarters” closes the first side with a colder experimental edge. On side two, “Tell Me Easter’s on Friday” balances an accessible melody against lyrics that resist simple explanation. “The Associate” is compact and disorienting, treating rhythm and texture as equal partners to the vocal. The performances never settle into a single genre, which is precisely why the material remains fresh beside more easily dated new-wave production.

“Message Oblique Speech” and “An Even Whiter Car” complete the sequence by revisiting ideas from different angles rather than offering a conventional climax. Across the collection, Mackenzie’s range is matched by Rankine’s curiosity about studio space and unconventional instrumentation. The record works equally well as an introduction to Associates and as the missing bridge between the darker debut period and the extravagant pop architecture that followed.

This Music On Vinyl edition is pressed on 180 gram silver vinyl and individually numbered as part of a limited run of 750 copies. It carries catalog number MOVLP3740C and retains the original eight-track running order. The sturdy physical presentation gives a definitive album-sized home to music first released across separate singles, while the silver pressing clearly distinguishes this edition from earlier black-vinyl reissues.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Track Listing

A1 White Car In Germany
A2 A Girl Named Property
A3 Kitchen Person
A4 Q Quarters
B1 Tell Me Easter’s On Friday
B2 The Associate
B3 Message Oblique Speech
B4 An Even Whiter Car