Billy MacKenzie & Steve Aungle - Return To Love

If ever in need of something to read go seek Tom Doyle's 'The Glamour Chase - The Maverick Life of Billy MacKenzie' an amazing read.... hilarious, tragic, bleak. Billy MacKenzie was indeed a one off - best known as singer for the marvellous The Associates he spent the 90's working on various differing musical projects before tragically dying by his own hand in 1997. What we have here is a 7" containing a never before heard track 'Return to Love' which is icy melancholic electronic pop which steers thankfully clear of some of the cheesy euro disco that marred his later work.  The B Side 'The Soul that Sighs' is similarly brilliant. Again a haunting, touching electronic torch song. Admittedly being demos its a bit scratchy but fans of Moroder era Sparks, Pet Shop Boys and anything MacKenzie has done will find a lot here to get their teeth into.

Billy was quite a caracter - an indoor firework & a free spirit with a voice of heaven. You either loved or hated his way of singing - he was "too much" some will say! In Steve Aungle Billy found a musical companion that in many ways match Alan Rankine in my ears - especially the stripped down pianoballads when Aungles simple and delicate playing makes a lot of room for Billys fantastic voice. Return To Love moves in a dreamy soundscape with wall to wall synths with Billy colouring it all. The musical answer to eating marcipan while wading in champagne really :-)