Fourth Drawer Down is the second album by Scottish Post-Punk

Post-punk

Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...

/New Wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

 group Associates released in 1981. It is a singles and b-sides compilation from all 6 singles they released that year on Situation Two

Situation Two

Situation Two, aka Situation 2, was a record label created in 1981 by Peter Kent as an offshoot of the larger Beggars Banquet label. At the time, Beggars Banquet records were distributed by WEA Records; so, to appeal to the indie audience and to get releases into the indie charts, the Situation Two...

 records. The album was reissued with 5 bonus tracks in 2000 by V2 Records

V2 Records

V2 Records is a record label that is owned by Universal Music Group as of October 2007. The label was founded in 1996 by Richard Branson, five years after he sold Virgin Records to EMI....

.

Development and Style

Alan Rankine and Billy Mackenzie recorded 6 singles for Beggars Banquet

Beggars Banquet Records

Beggars Banquet is an English independent record label that began as a chain of record shops owned by Martin Mills and Nick Austin, and is part of the Beggars Group of labels...

 imprint Situation 2 in 1981 at Playground Studios. These recordings would prove to be the most outworldly and avant-garde of the band's career. The angular production of The Affectionate Punch

The Affectionate Punch

The Affectionate Punch is the first album by Scottish Post-Punk group, Associates. It was released in August 1980.- Style :The album is markedly different from both the Associates darker, more experimental recordings and their later watery dense production style as made famous on Sulk and Fourth...

had been dropped in favour of vast dark electronic soundscapes. Everything from a typewriter as a back beat to coughs and sonar pings were used for musical effect. Mackenzie sung through a vacuum cleaner hose for the song "Kitchen Person" to obtain an intense compressed sound. Various drugs were consumed in the frenzied sessions which ended up in Rankine and Mackenzie's hospitalisation after accidentally snorting 5 grams of methamphetamine

Methamphetamine

Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...

 during the recording of the b-side "Straw Towels".

Tracklisting

Personnel

The Associates:

• Billy Mackenzie
  Billy Mackenzie
  William MacArthur "Billy" Mackenzie was a Scottish singer, with a distinctive falsetto voice best known as a member of The Associates.- Biography :...
  
   - Vocals
• Alan Rankine
  Alan Rankine
  Alan Rankine played keyboards, and guitars, for the rock band, Associates, which he co-founded with Billy Mackenzie in the late 1970s....
  
   - Guitars, Keyboards, Other Instruments
• Michael Dempsey
  Michael Dempsey
  Michael Dempsey is a bassist from England, who has performed as a member of several post-punk and New Wave bands including The Cure and Associates.-Early years:...
  
   - Bass
• John Murphy
  John Murphy (musician)
  John Murphy , sometimes credited as "Jonh Murphy", is an Australian drummer, percussionist and multi-instrumental session musician who has played in numerous Australian and British post-punk, ambient and industrial music groups...
  
  - Drums

Other Personnel:

• Mike Hedges - Producer, Engineer
• Flood - Producer
• Antoine Giacomoni - Sleeve Photography