Album Assessment
Swell Maps
The John Peel Classes
Vinyl, CD, Digital
Launched 12 Sept 2025
Following the Document Retailer Day ’25 version of the remastered purple vinyl of Swell Maps’ The John Peel Classes, the CD and digital launch – formally out there 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 title alone makes your coronary heart leap, should 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, in contrast to 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 known 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 Toilet and Don’t Throw Ashtrays At Me pointed to residence recording and improvised chaos…. This was an enormous 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 insurrection. 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 typically and such a cliché that I describe a band as inspirational and influential… however on this specific 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 in case you are anticipating an album evaluation)
1979 – I used to be within the fifth yr at secondary college and used to hang around with a child known as Paul Stevenson who was a yr youthful than me (remarkable at an all-boys college… I used to be clearly ….. ) He performed guitar, appreciated The Quo however purchased a great deal of punk information he’d heard on Peel. When he determined to type a band together 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 because of being tall and known 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 apply 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 Massive Music Room – because of a kindly outdated instructor – utilizing college kettle drums – guitars and mics plugged in numerous apply amps and an outdated mahogany stereo – cranked as loud as potential.
As singer I had managed to amass a set of colored chalk and crushed the inexperienced and purple ones to a powder which I used to ‘dye’ my hair.
I should 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 title I overlook, beginning ‘Caroline’ by Standing Quo in try to steer 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 apply 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 truly received round to even training 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 should you’d slightly) will likely be rightfully launched and will likely be a wonderful useful resource stuffed with revolutionary music.
The Swell Maps periods, while first rate, appears looking back 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 periods 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 automobile.)
Received a Rolls Royce / It’s driving me wild / I by no means thought of it.
Received 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 power of One other Tune and Learn About Seymour too, nonetheless sounds impressed and rapid. But it surely’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 Prepare…)
Noisy, chaotic, and defiantly experimental, Swell Maps could not have discovered industrial success of their time, however their impression on music is simple, they went on to be an inspiration to bands akin to R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, The Pastels, Stereolab, and Nirvana (Kurt Cobain was typically seen sporting a Swell Maps t-shirt).
A democracy throughout 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 might have detected that I used to be barely disenchanted 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 not settle for ‘different’ variations. Or possibly they’ve being over-deified by American followers who take them far too significantly?
It’s most likely simply me. I’m certain 99% of former Swell Maps followers will likely be delighted with this belated launch.
Swell Maps, greater than every other band appear to be particularly a few time and a spot in my Damascene youth.
A line up of Swell Maps are presently 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 Toilet – 16/10/78
Learn About Seymour – 16/10/78
One other Tune – 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
Massive 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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