ABOUT SWELL MAPS

A little gang of unknown English teenagers started a scene in their obscure Midlands home-town of Solihull in 1972. This project evolved until it came to be known as Swell Maps, centred around four core members:

Nikki Sudden (guitar, vocals),

Epic Soundtracks (drums, keyboards),

Richard Earl (guitars, vocals).

Jowe Head (bass, guitars, vocals)

Swell Maps produced and recorded tracks for their debut single, “Read About Seymour” themselves in late 1977. They released this independently on their own label, Rather Records, when “do-it-yourself” record releases by bands was still a new idea. These days, Swell Maps are now known as pioneers of what is now referred to as the “Alternative Rock” scene. Musically, they mixed punk rock with experimental and psychedelic sounds.

Swell Maps released four singles and two albums in a brief but dramatic career, in a partnership with Rough Trade Records. This led to them topping the UK independent charts, and influencing a diverse array of bands such as Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Pavement, Stereolab, Pastels and Blur. Swell Maps split up in 1980.

Those two Swell Maps studio albums, “A Trip to Marineville” and “Jane From Occupied Europe”, continue to be available and still attract enthusiastic new listeners, due to excellently produced re-releases by Mute Records in Europe, and Secretly Canadian in the USA. They still get played on BBC Radio in the UK, and many other stations around the world.

Sadly, Epic and Nikki, who were brothers, died in 1997 and 2006, so this website is dedicated to their memory.