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4.0 out of 5 stars
Double Fascination as Duo Reinvents Pop, October 23, 2000
This review is from: Double Hipness (Audio CD)
The Associates' brand-new rarities Double Hipness 2-CD set contains no major revelations from the late singer/songwriter Billie MacKenzie and guitarist/producer/etc. Alan Rankine; but it does have two or three songs that might have been outstanding album inclusions at some time. The disks contain four main sections, demos from the partnership's earliest days, pre-Affectionate Punch demos, pre-Sulk demos, and demos from the 1993 MacKenzie-Rankine reunion, the Auchterhouse Sessions.
A couple of oddities are thrown in, like the ones that end the V2 Records CD reissues of Fourth Drawer Down and Sulk. The newest material, from the Auchterhouse Sessions, is the least revelatory - Rankine and MacKenzie both seem to be holding back emotionally while overwhelming the songs in overdubs, walls of sound, uninspired vocalisms. Rankine's unique jangly-stinging guitar is absent - he makes clouds of atmospheric noise here. The fact that they never released a new album indicates that they may have felt the same, lots of effort, not much result. For men who let the world look at every concentrated, and stray, thought and feeling, this is particularly veiled material.
A few items stand out: Rankine was a flat-out incredible talent right from the get-go, an inventive virtuoso of originality and listenability, playing in a post-punk milieu that was only beginning to understand those virtues. Some of the earliest demos have some of the most intriguing guitar bits, live-sounding, while MacKenzie is obviously just dreaming things up on the spot. On some takes it seems as if the people who chose them for inclusion in this double-CD set picked them for guitar and not for voice. For demos, Rankine's guitar-playing reaches pinnacles of originality, excellence and consistency that are unmatched by most final album releases. Many sound remarkably like the final cuts.
In his more polished demos, MacKenzie started right out with bare-naked it's-all-here lyrical honesty that also plays and goofs with you, giving you the medium of his bouncy personality at the same time he's conveying his strong feelings about things. Many artists strive a lifetime to be this honest, this serious, and this playful, and he just did it - I imagine it might be a result of three things: early childhood encouragement of performance and his remarkable voice; otherworldly physical attractiveness; and a self-realization of his mercurial sexuality that told him, You'll never fit anyone's rules or framework, Be yourself, Do whatever you want. But he definitely holds off the performance for the album and singles releases - you've heard MacKenzie give his finest already, on the familiar records and hits.
A MacKenziesque delight is Mortice Lock, with faux or real narcissism pulling the song through a headlong pop rush, "I'm in love with Billie's cheekbones..." What makes this so him and so wonderful is the composition, the pop hooks, the drive. The song is so carefully and perfectly constructed that it makes its own objectivity: MacKenzie is now the singer, now the object of the song, like a Jackson Pollack painting. Here's Billie painting, see, you can look at the very drips from his bush. This paint splattered around is Billie's way of painting. It's about him. It's by him. It's about him.
The title track, Double Hipness, is personal, pointed, weird, uncomfortable, a big question mark, beautiful rocking swinging hip music, classic Associates. It seems to be a jab by MacKenzie at Rankine, his ferocious musicality, his black Tyrone Power-movie-idol looks, like a petulant lover's slap. The affectionate punch? If Mortice Lock is a playful mirror, Double Hipness is poisonous, green-eyed jealousy. What's going on here? It's also got a nasty, flippant, guitar riff by Rankine and two irreverent solos on bass. These guys could do anything and here they air out their least accessible lyric with plenty of space, shape the song for a thinking listen. And a great listen it is, too, irresistible, demanding many a replay!
There's a live Gloomy Sunday from 1980 that is thrilling - MacKenzie's voice is steel, ferocious, a powerful and melodious whistle piercing the night. There's a peculiar instrumental demo of Waiting for the Loveboat by Rankine, released later by MacKenzie without Rankine on his ensemble-syrupy Perhaps album, which is lovable for all kinds of other reasons. This cut is a keyboard-heavy drift into insignificance, ennui, as if Rankine was already looking for the door.
The eagerly-anticipated demos for the defining hits Club Country and Party Fears Two are working pieces that are indicative of the creative process these two perfectionists went through to achieve the ecstatic heights reached by those two songs in their final form - but there's a lot missing. There's still an uncrossable chasm between these working sessions and the final releases: listening to this, without all the intervening tape that probably hit the cutting room floor, it sounds like their hits didn't evolve - they blasted off in leaps of genius and mutual inspiration.
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