Associates – Fourth Drawer Down
I'm determined to get more people to listen to this record and I'll back it to the hilt. I only recently discovered it was a compilation and not a carefully knitted-together studio album. They were effectively speeding off their nuts in 1982, recording as much as they could as quickly as possibly, siphoning off these songs individually to various labels in the hope they'd get picked up. Eventually they cobbled them together for this, and you couldn't actually buy a copy other than on import, but it sounds immaculate and extremely strange compared with their 'proper' studio records that followed.

It can't be denied that they were heavily indebted to Bowie to begin with, most particularly Low, but it was that "throw those piercing keyboard oscillations, buzz saw guitars and opera singer having a mental breakdown vocals with strange cryptic lyrics against the wall quick sharp and strain them through an early eighties pop mesh" element that can't be denied.

Billy Mackenzie is the most underrated singer of the period and Alan Rankine the most underrated guitarist.

It's the record I try and play everyone given the chance and it's been the only constant in the last few years.

"When you see me angry/ It makes me want to kiss you!" Yeah!
Paul Sykes