whatever happens next

I have always been a Swell Maps fan, and someone on social media’s very dismissive putdown of them – something about schoolboy war fantasies and a great guitar sound I think – revived my interest and even made me do something I’d been meaning to do for decades, which was, replace my copy of Whatever Happens Next. This was the third Swell Maps album, released just after they’d broken up. It’s a double album containing some different versions of songs from their first two albums (including some Peel sessions) and two sides – two! – of dithery home recordings that probably should never have been released. It also has one ‘new’ song – ‘Armadillo’ – which is almost as good as the singles, and appears here in two iterations. Whereas there is a cottage industry of Swell Maps reissues and compilations and so on, in which even abortive solo efforts have been reworked and rehashed, this album has never been considered either canon or classic and hasn't come out again - possibly because of the difficulty in relicensing the Peel material. 

I guess Swell Maps are one of those bands who really should not have worked or made sense. Their lyrics are, as that poorly remembered critic points out, often really fucking dreadful. Nikki Sudden’s tendency was to write songs evoking lame adventure stories from, I assume, childhood enthusiasms  and sing them in a bored, suitably atonal manner. Sometimes (eg one of the versions of ‘Armadillo’ for instance) other members of the band, I’m guessing maybe Jowe Head who was probably really if not the most talented member then someone who didn’t really need to flower until later in his career, would add back up in the style of 1970s rock theatre (‘oh yeah, baby’ stuff). In a way, I would say, Nikki’s songs were just the conversation starters for embellishment by others, particularly Epic who remains one of my favourite drummers (no-one else on earth would have put that beat to ‘Midget Submarines’). Not that Nikki couldn’t write a great song when he put his mind to it – ‘The Big Store’ is still an all-time favourite – but his role as main songwriter was probably at least as much reigning in the formlessness as anything else. 

There is also a certain asceticism and sexlessness to those military strategy lyrics which sets them apart. So they’re not generally singing about personal things or romance (I mean, ‘Cake Shop’ on the second album is a funny work of genius – it’s a Jowe song, not a Nikki song) and ironically the uniqueness of this approach, as bizarre as it is, has kept them in a world of their own. 

I don’t know. I’ll keep listening. At the moment I’m stuck somewhat on side 4, where the Peel session stuff is, and Lora Logic is guesting, enhancing the overall by about 200%.