Swell Maps – A Trip To Marineville

I got my copy signed by Nikki Sudden when I met him back in the '80s. He also signed my copy of Real Shocks. Such a great band, interesting music with vital urgency and zest. That's a swell map.

Being a Swell Maps fan can be confusing sometimes; this album is a classic no matter which version you buy, but bonus tracks come and go! Original vinyl should come with a 4 track EP. Mute CDs have 8 bonus tracks, "Ripped and Torn" from the B side of their first single and two tracks from the original bonus EP, first but not last appearance of the unreleased single "International Rescue" and four instrumental/experimental tracks that show up nowhere else. ("Nevertoseeanyotherway" turns up in a different mix/edit on "Sweep the Desert".)

The Secretly Canadian CD has the 4 tracks from the original bonus EP and the Japanese Felicity CD from 2004 has the EP plus the A/B sides of the "Read about Seymour" and "Dresden Style" singles. (I'm guessing "Mystery Track/Nothing Much" is the unlisted track from the first pressing of "Dresden Style" - anyone with sharp ears and a complete collection who can confirm this?)

And the 2005 album from Munster Records spreads the original album over three sides, comes with the EP, and side four has "International Rescue" and "Ripped and Torn" plus three tracks that first saw the light of day on the "International Rescue" compilation CD.

Did I get all of that right?

I have the 1989 Mute version - but with the 7inch. Anyone have any info on this? Or could it be this is some bootleg version?

How rotten! Sad Nikki Sudden's gone. He who outbuzzed the Buzzcocks outcanned Can and unwired Wire. Now joined sibling Epic Soundtracks in a Brummie never never land. May your memory linger ever, fade away never, as Bryan Ferry remarked! I can recall Nikki selling me records in the Rough Trade shop in Portobello with his innocent face. It seems only yesterday. But really Nikki never ever seems to have aged and now he's preserved in perpetuity like a glam punk musical angel Bolanesque in his sonic dotage. Not unlike his fellow zany chanteur the late Billy Mackenzie whose Associates album Sulk this enigma is on a par with. We didn't quite know how really 'rather' good they were then lol. We suspected their undoubted quality. Nevertheless the debut trip's a goodun and a grower, now seeming better than fellow speedofsound iconoclasts Wire, less posed/less pretentious. Though Wire are no slouches and despite its Ramones skelter pace Pink Flag is a landmark. But this 'Trip' isn't that cool. It's cooler. It doesn't seem rehearsed, overlearnt from a live set to give it a fake professionalism. It isn't just a classic studio masterpiece first lp. Its a curio. Sounds like a buzzsaw in your head creating a new music. Not just punk. Track after track emitting an excessively exuberant air. But listen again and it clicks into place. As if Subway Sect decided to rock with Lou? Or the Velvets with Vic? No, 'Rather' it's a perfect storm- Maps with Nikki. You cant pin 'em down.These school friends can play and they were becoming men preaching an ethereal gifted punk magic like quicksilver. Dayjobs combined with gigging and headstrong freneticism of recording 2 great albums 'n a handful o'45s- Sudden's burning candles both ends suggested the map showed either oblivion or nirvana (Keith Richards or Peter Pan?). The music's got a bit o' both. Like Raw Power these are songs to die for. A pity he later did, prematurely. They had disbanded too early but did make musical nirvana before the burn out and the bros never dealt with it. Hopefully our Nikki and Cobain have revived the Jacobite Rebellion in a punky heaven somewhere. The flip side is this lp's energetic legacy as visceral punk art isn't out of place amongst killer groundbreaking sounds from early Slits, Hell/Voidoids, This Heat, early Ants, Wire of course, early Jim Kerr artypersona Minds, early DAF, France's Metal Urbain, Finland's Kai Kivi and Ismo Alanko; Lapset era Amberla /Musta era Jore Vastelin, the Banshees, Adverts, Passage, 'Y' era Pop Group, PragVec, Prefects, Josef K, K Joke, early Skids, early Pil, Lydia Lunch, Vic Godard, Birthday Party, Mark P/ATV, Styrene/Logic and Mark Smith/ Fall, or Vibrator Knox, at most crucially abstract; exalted company indeed though this is major chord indiepunk and we haven't listened enough to Sudden and friends as they went away too suddenly. Cop a catchy earful. Like some above hep acts they could be popsters too. But who would have thought that actually the Midlands produced the most convincingly unassuming punk debut of all? What will London and Manchester do now? If Devoto Buzzcocks had gone on to make an lp this is what it could have sounded like- in fact Nikki confided to me Pete Shelley used to say just that to him. Sudden was rightfully very proud of this visionary record's effortlessness that made everyone else wish they had made it.
If you admire 'Spiral Scratch' you'll appreciate this. And vice versa. It really is that revelatory. They weren't a big name like pistols or damned but RT knew what they were getting, an indie powerhouse whose reputation just can't stop growing. Geoff Travis and John Peel championed them. I am so happy you guys did. Jowe, lay a wreath for Nikki and Epic from me. The siblings had it all. Antistars who were innocent of plasticity. Like Rotten/Jeanette/Levene/Wobble, Siouxsie and Severin, Mark Smith, T V Smith and Gaye Advert, Stewart and Sager, with Oliver and Neneh, Ari Up, Ana n Gina Raincoat, Poly Styrene, Linder and Devoto, etc..these were naturals who exuded street attitude against pomposity but earned so much respect and somehow spoke for and to us and held the mirror back at the world itself. The boundary between stage and audience was being eroded. This really was the alternative tv. You carved up suburbia and urban stereotypes with a satirical eye and subjected the world to a surreal scan where normality is conventional timeserving. You guys along with Phones, Golden, Biggles and Jowe earned a place in our hearts. Never got 'swollen heads' as often unlauded (by u who turned noses up at indie labels but now some have maps as rough trade's greatest act)- now in the cd and download era see their newfound fans' ranks 'swelling'. If you can afford vinyl versions of this lp do kick it on as the artwork brings the experience into focus. But the cds still capture everything I expect of their sweet music I find. Maps will lead the way thru all media. What a swell thing!

this and the jane from occupied europe lp just got reissued on vinyl by secretly canadian!