Just received (from Burning Shed) an announcement that Cherry Red are re-releasing The Associates third album, 'Perhaps', on January 31st 2020. This is a fabulous album despite the very messy money-and-time-wasting that went into making it and the absence of Alan Rankine edgy and melodramatic multi-instrumentalism. It somehow still manages to be totally smooth and weirdly wonky at the same time!
But keep listening all the way through to the end of the bonus material on disc 2 and you'll find the 7" and 12" versions of the non-album single 'Take Me To The Girl' featuring guitar from none other than Bill Nelson. Not the most obviously Bill-style song or guitar parts and the single is rather over-produced but these are the only surviving snatches (as far as we know) of the quite brief recording sessions for which Billy Mackenzie invited Bill Nelson to contribute to his recording career. There may be another two or three unreleased songs somewhere but even their titles are unknown, let alone the music itself. To me, the whole notion that two such contrasting geniuses ever worked together at all is quite mindstretching!
Got very excited about this single when it came out - I think I might have the 10" somewhere. Listening to it on YouTube at the moment and it has some quite funky guitar on it, which I don't remember. My recollection was just what I thought was an E-bow solo at the very end. Not a huge amount of guitar on the track anyway, and it's a relatively slight piece, arguably. Purchase of the reissue is more than justified however by the presence of the sublime Breakfast - what a gorgeous track that is.