The Swell Maps - Let's Build A Car Video

I have to admit, until about a month ago I'd never heard of The Swell Maps. Funny thing is, I was looking for a fairly obscure shoegazer band from the late 80s called Jane From Occupied Europe on eBay, and instead, The Swell Maps kept showing up. Then a couple of weeks ago I tried the same at YouTube, and whilst the band I wanted failed to appear, The Swell Maps did. Intrigued, I took a look. Within 30 seconds of seeing this I was off buying their 1980 LP The Swell Maps In... Jane From Occupied Europe (see the search dilemma) and it's been on the headphones all week since it arrived. It's pretty damn fine. Apparently the band I was after took their name from this LP.

Basically, they've proved to be an influence on bands like Sonic Youth and Pavement, I can hear some Spacemen 3 in there as well. I was aware of both Nikki Sudden (and the French Revolution and solo stuff) and Jowe Head (Television Personalities) both of which originally started out in Swell Maps. Kraut rock, punk, ambient and lo-fi, the LP is superb and this track was one of the singles from the same era. Let's Build A Car - it's not an offical video as such, more a compilation of 8mm films and stuff, but it does the job.

Posted by Dio Bach at 11:45 PM