Review Summary: Scoring lines upon the backs of tender chocolate mice..
By the end of the 70’s, music in Western metropolises reached such superlative creative levels, you’d have been hard-pressed to take a step without treading on a new trailblazing genre. First wave punk, krautrock, electronica, dub, art funk, glam, no-wave, progressive disco and countless others were sparking off and cornering niche markets in a span of months. By the mid-80’s, most of them would retreat into specialized concavities, recessed down to aficionados and hipster reformists looking for obscure avenues to ply. The one genus that managed to strike middle-ground between artful integrity and commercial vantage was post-punk. Spearheaded by the likes of Joy Division, Wire, Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees and a handful of others, post-punk would go on to fan out into its own subtypes, ranging from direct descendants like goth and dream pop, to more distanced kin like trip-hop and glitch electronics. In the face of that vast saturation of bands coming up, it was all too easy to miss out on all the smaller acts filling out the spaces left by the genre’s giants, and unfortunately, Swell Maps, perhaps post-punk’s most raucous, daring pioneers, have gotten lost in the fold.
Formed in Birmingham in 1972, Swell Maps is the brainchild of brothers Adrian and Kevin Godfrey, who would go on to become Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks respectively. After recording two albums as Swell Maps, the brothers would go on to form a string of more roots-tinged punk acts like the Jacobites and Crime and the City Solution, as well as sustaining separate solo careers. Both would also briefly float through Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds timelines and intermittently play guitar on PJ Harvey’s touring band. Today, their credentials are something to behold. But in the late 70’s, no one could have foretold that these two dreary-looking kids clad in black with big hair would form a vital spore of a lasting movement.
“Jane from Occupied Europe” formed in a perfect moment, before post-punk’s gloomy pathos became a point of unyielding apotheosis, when the skeletal form of its songs still carried jabbing guitars and a rowdy yelp, rounded off by an atmospheric curtain. Even at their most strident, Joy Division and Magazine’s sound had sanded-off edges, more fertile ground for emotional dirges than boisterous insurgence. But Swell Maps rocked more than they ever plead angrily. Though the album’s Cold War paranoia theme was a fairly loose concept, these songs shake with sonic anxiety, and when the band lock into a marching groove like they do on “The Helicopter Spies,” they seem unstoppable. Elsewhere, on “Let’s Buy Bridge,” a cockeyed sax solo sees the band pay their dues to James Chance and the Contortionists.
For a group of kids who existed in this formation for all of two years, it’s staggeringly impressive how well-rounded and self-possessed the music is. “Cake Shop Girl” is so hermetic in its oscillation, you’d think it was written by someone who’d been cutting post-punk anthems for years. It’s arguably Swell Maps’ finest moment, and easily stands up there along with “I am the Fly,” “Shot on Both Sides” and “Damaged Goods.”
“Jane’s” middle stretch is where the band’s proto-electronic tendencies are best displayed. “Big Empty Field” and “Mining Villages” are back-to-back tracks that essentially consist of long synth breakdowns. These moments, along with the desperate “Secret Island” are as close as Swell Maps get to tackling post-punk’s now-standard fare of fractured beauty. By the album’s last third, the band seemed bored of playing it so dulcet, and they end “Jane” in a fit of brutalized noise. Aside from the cheeky piano intermission “A Raincoat’s Room,” “Jane’s” last breaths sound like a cornered animal. “Blenheim Shots” bounces so eagerly and stupidly, you can’t help but dance along; and closer “New York” is an unrelenting wash of guitars, as thick as treacle and tar.
There’s as much dignity as there is banality to being relegated to the slew of music’s ‘forgotten masterpieces.’ For every clear-cut inductee like “Electric Byrd” and “Cold Fact,” there are some dodgy residents: Dylan’s “Street Legal,” or some sap who thinks every other breath Zappa took constitutes an obscure classic. And it’s a moot enough point to argue nowadays, when any month, an apsis revival kick might suddenly make Swell Maps vinyl the hottest ticket around. What’s more enduring is putting on a pair of headphones and letting a burst of purified noise briefly take you to where the Berlin Wall is starting to crumble.
