Swell Maps: In Jane From Occupied Europe [SECRETLY CANADIAN]

Why you'll love it

Secretly Canadian's remastered LP adds a printed inner sleeve and a download code. Paste ranked it No. 42 among the best post-punk albums, and Pitchfork placed it at No. 165 on its list of the best albums of the 1980s.

This edition

• Remastered
• Printed inner sleeve
• Download card included

About the album

Swell Maps started as a gang of teenage friends around Solihull in the West Midlands, inventing bands, names and whole fictional worlds long before they could play. By the time they recorded Jane from Occupied Europe at WMRS in Leamington Spa between 1979 and 1980, brothers Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks, Richard Earl and Jowe Head had turned that homemade spirit into something genuinely new.

Pitchfork's Judy Berman called it a catalogue of thrilling new sounds. "Robot Factory" kicks off in a clatter of drums and organ, Sudden's "Let's Buy a Bridge" and "Border Country" are raw, catchy and gleefully off-kilter,, while "Secret Island" and "Blenheim Shots" lean into the krautrock-style collage that made them pioneers. "Mining Villages" is a 1977 home recording of found sounds and typewriter.

Rough Trade first put it out in 1980, and Pitchfork heard it as the culmination of everything the band had been building toward. Their DIY fearlessness echoed through indie rock for decades, from Sonic Youth to Pavement. The personnel credits include mumbling and, memorably, an eiderdown, which is the first time a duvet has made our staff picks.

Also at Kops: more Swell Maps on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Secretly Canadian (cat# SC109), a reissue of the 1980 album.