Formed in Edinburgh, 1979, where they performed standards and soul classics to a largely perplexed punk audience, Billy MacKenzie and Alan Rankine were the Associates – a rich and dramatic, occasionally avant-garde collective, responsible for some of the most enduring and romantic records of the early 1980s and reaching something a personal zenith with the critically lauded ‘Sulk’ album after leaving Fiction Records for WEA in 1982 – the promise of a mightier budget lending itself perfectly to MacKenzies’ booming, overwrought production values and his soaring, soothing tenor, gliding on thermals left in the wake of similar four octave epic crooners like Scott Walker, Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory and Spark’s Russell Mael. The sound was huge, it was ornate and it was sadly all lost when the beleaguered and depressive MacKenzie committed suicide in his father’s shed one year after leaving his mother whilst preparing for a comeback on Nude Records – home to Suede.
Rumoured to have been Morrisey’s lover and inspiration behind Smith’s record, ‘William, It Was Really Nothing’ MacKenzie and the Associates shared absolutely none of that period’s skulking agitation and cynicism, instead pursuing the loftiest expressions of love with the occasional chill of melancholy. And this record – the band’s last – is really no different – even it proves one of the most upbeat and physically demonstrative of any release by the band. ‘Fire To Ice’ recalls the sharp suited glamour of ABC, ‘Fever’ the clammy Balearic elegance of Bryan Ferry and ‘Just Can’t Say Goodbye’ the pleading melodrama of Gene Pitney and Dusty Springfield. All well over the top of course, and all sporting unseemly and outdated production values, but every one of these tunes a fierce throbbing testament to the excess and thrill of the sophisticate MacKenzie.
The new release of ‘Wild and Lonely’ has been totally remastered and features the bonus tracks: ‘123’, ‘Green Tambourine’, ‘Groovin With Mr Bloe’, ‘I’m Gonna Run Away From You’ and ‘Fever In The Shadows’.