Jane from Occupied Europe

While the Swell Maps early singles and debut full-length were brimming with the primitive energy of punk rock, by the release of 1980's JANE FROM OCCUPIED EUROPE, the band was punk more in terms of ideology and a sense of artistic possibility than of a purely musical sound. Representing very much that which came after punk, hence their often being labeled a "post-punk" band, the Swell Maps are all over the place stylistically here. Songs such as "Border Country," "Cake Shop," and "Secret Island" utilize a familiar guitar rock base, and "Collision With a Frogman" even rides out a swanky surf-guitar lick, yet the band's experimental tendencies are more fully integrated into the overall song structures of OCCUPIED EUROPE. That said, the album also has a number of purely outre moments as well, as on the proto-industrial scrape of "Big Maze in the Desert" or the noise pastiche "Mining Villages." The Swell Maps called it quits after this album with founding siblings Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks going on to various projects, and though their run together was brief, they left behind an exhilarating legacy of DIY expressionism, with JANE FROM OCCUPIED EUROPE being arguably the quintessential document.