Album Evaluation
Swell Maps
The John Peel Classes
Vinyl, CD, Digital
Launched 12 Sept 2025
Following the Report Retailer Day ’25 version of the remastered pink vinyl of Swell Maps’ The John Peel Classes, the CD and digital launch – formally obtainable for the primary time in 40 years – will likely be launched on 12 September 2025 by way of Mute. Do you consider in Artwork? Asks Ged Babey.
Say! That’s a swell map..
Point out of the bands identify alone makes your coronary heart leap, in case you had been one of many Punk Era Peel Teenagers glued to your radio (again in 1978,79, 80), too younger or too provincial to get to precise gigs.
Swell Maps had been the definitive UK oddball punks – however they had been simply naturally odd, not like say the contrived, thought-out, weirdness of Devo or Spizz.
Swell Maps had been the provincial nerd-punks obsessive about sci-fi, comics, TV and unusual rock’n’roll. Their do-it-yourself musical experimentation ran parallel with the beginnings of punk.
With songs referred to as Worldwide Rescue (The Thunderbirds organisation) and Helicopter Spies (the 1968 Man From UNCLE film title) they appeared to be stay-at-home TV addicts the identical as their followers.
Concord in Your Lavatory and Don’t Throw Ashtrays At Me pointed to residence recording and improvised chaos…. This was a large revelation to the brand new technology of Peel listeners on the time when Buzzcocks had been all about unconsummated relationships, The Conflict had been all socio-political rise up. Right here was a band merely arsing about and calling it Artwork. And it sounded a whole lot of enjoyable.
(There’s a fabulous and really lengthy interview with the charming Jowe Head right here the place he tells the Maps story)
It’s so usually and such a cliché that I describe a band as inspirational and influential… however on this explicit case… Swell Maps had been, fairly actually, the band that made me realise that ‘anybody can do it’…..
(Warning, Lengthy, memory-lane digression, skip it if you’re anticipating an album evaluation)
1979 – I used to be within the fifth yr at secondary college and used to hang around with a child referred to as Paul Stevenson who was a yr youthful than me (unparalleled at an all-boys college… I used to be clearly ….. ) He performed guitar, preferred The Quo however purchased a great deal of punk data he’d heard on Peel. When he determined to type a band along with his class mates none of them wished to sing, so he insisted that I ought to do it. I used to be already noticeably a freak as a consequence of being tall and referred to as Babey (pronounced ‘child’). He wished to mannequin The Fruitbats on Swell Maps whose Marineville album had simply come out. He taped it for me and instructed me to write down out and observe the phrases, singing, howling and coughing alongside to ‘Full Moon’, which I duly did.
I’d by no means actually thought of being a singer in a band earlier than – however the concept appealed. We had a jam / rehearsal within the college Large Music Room – because of a kindly previous trainer – utilizing college kettle drums – guitars and mics plugged in varied observe amps and an previous mahogany stereo – cranked as loud as attainable.
As singer I had managed to accumulate a set of colored chalk and crushed the inexperienced and pink ones to a powder which I used to ‘dye’ my hair.
I will need to have been an appalling racket – about six or seven run via’s of Full Moon, getting progressively quicker, louder, extra manic – punctuated by gaps the place Pauls tubby mate who’s identify I neglect, beginning ‘Caroline’ by Standing Quo in try to influence us all to affix in.
The spotlight of the session was over the past take, bits of wooden bounced off the first-floor window, I poked my head out to see a gang of twenty assembled Sixth Formers from the woodwork dept reverse, mocking, throwing issues and in as soon as case dancing and howling ‘I gotta full mooooo-oon!’
First observe session and we had arrived, because of Swell Maps. (We break up up shortly after as a result of Quo boy refused to allow us to use his amps any extra. I went on to type Ged Babey & The Rusks who by no means really received round to even practising or shopping for devices. There have been a pair different bands with Stranglers-fans however neither took off so I made a decision to get my revenge by changing into a music journalist).
Again to topic in hand – Swell Maps The John Peel Classes.
In the future, one assumes, the entire nice Peel Classes (or BBC Radio Classes in case you’d slightly) will likely be rightfully launched and will likely be a wonderful useful resource stuffed with revolutionary music.
The Swell Maps classes, while respectable, appears on reflection to be fairly slavishly reproducing the Journey To Marineville album songs (the primary two) and the final one loosing the plot a bit in the identical method because the Jane From Occupied Europe album did.
In comparison with the say the Wire classes from the identical timeframe, which confirmed the transition between albums…it’s a little bit of a disappointment.
Swell Maps although had been by no means as severe as Wire. By no means as intense as Pleasure Division. By no means as image-conscious as Psychedelic Furs. By no means as purposeful as Adam & the Ants. But they equalled all of them in brief, surreal bursts like Vertical Slum (with its nod to Bolan’s voice-enhancing automotive.)
Obtained a Rolls Royce / It’s driving me wild / I by no means considered it.
Obtained an area / Between my eyes / And I by no means knew about it
No extra methods / To excavate you / There’s no two methods about it
I feel that’s all / There may be to say / Nothing extra, oh, oh no
(The climate, the leather-based) Advert infinitum
The frenetic vitality of One other Music and Learn About Seymour too, nonetheless sounds impressed and speedy. However it’s the what-we-now-know to be Krautrock affect that gave Swell Maps their edge and id.
(Pete Shelley solely included one kraut-influenced track per album: Pulsebeat, Late For The Practice…)
Noisy, chaotic, and defiantly experimental, Swell Maps might not have discovered business success of their time, however their influence on music is simple, they went on to be an inspiration to bands reminiscent of R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, The Pastels, Stereolab, and Nirvana (Kurt Cobain was usually seen sporting a Swell Maps t-shirt).
A democracy inside the confines of punk’s “something is feasible” maxim, members Biggles Books, Jowe Head and brothers Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks, helped form the panorama of post-punk and DIY music.
You will have detected that I used to be barely disillusioned with the Swell Maps Peel Classes. Perhaps as a result of it has been so lengthy since I final heard them. Perhaps as a result of I devoured and listened to A Journey To Marineville a lot as a youth that my ageing mind can’t settle for ‘various’ variations. Or possibly they’ve being over-deified by American followers who take them far too severely?
It’s most likely simply me. I’m positive 99% of former Swell Maps followers will likely be delighted with this belated launch.
Swell Maps, greater than another band appear to be particularly a couple of time and a spot in my Damascene youth.
A line up of Swell Maps are at present gigging and are a whole lot of enjoyable from all accounts, retaining the shambolic, playful edge that also asks, ‘Do you consider in artwork?’
The CD and digital launch of Swell Maps’ The John Peel Classes is out on 12 September, the brand new remastered vinyl version is out now.
THE JOHN PEEL SESSIONS TRACKLISTING
Worldwide Rescue – 16/10/78
Concord in Your Lavatory – 16/10/78
Learn About Seymour – 16/10/78
One other Music – 16/10/78
Full Moon / Blam!! / Full Moon (Reprise) – 16/10/78
Armadillo – 15/5/79
Vertical Slum / Forest Hearth – 15/5/79
Midget Submarines – 15/5/79
Bandits One 5 – 15/5/79
Large Empty Area – 18/3/80
Bleep And Booster Come Spherical For Tea / Secret Island – 18/3/80
Let’s Purchase a Bridge – 18/3/80
Helicopter Spies / A Raincoat’s Room – 18/3/80
Official Maps web site
All phrases Ged Babey with press launch content material in italics
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