Jacobites: The Ragged School

Back in the mid-1990s, when Pavement were the darling buds on the thriving indie rock azalea bush, one name that was tossed out as a reference for this strangely-fresh yet weirdly-familiar sounding band was Swell Maps. And indeed, hearing the two bands together, you realize that Pavement’s self-consciously uncomfortable arrangements, shambling verses and grad-student lyrics were dandy upgrades of what Swell Maps had been doing in the 1970s.

Nikki Sudden, along with his brother Epic Soundtracks, guided the Maps through some remarkable singles (“Let’s Build a Car”) and two full-lengths (notably Jane from Occupied Europe), all filled with damaged pop, bluesy rave-ups, and weird noises (kazoos? toy pianos? balloon solos?). Sounding like illegitimate offspring of the Stooges and Stockhausen, Swell Maps arguably cast the mold in post-punk England, only to demolish it at the same time.

All this, of course, was before a Swell Maps song featured loudly in a 2001 Honda commercial. Although the squalling punk of “Blam!!!” nicely complemented the images of squealing tires in the desert dust, it was a shock to realize that, in less than a decade, Sudden and Soundtracks had made a strange move in the collective cultural consciousness. Indeed, this was a bizarre backslide, to go from curious obscurities to venerated elder musical statesmen to shills for lifestyle capitalism.

At the same time that this commercial blazed across our television screens (and at the same time that Sudden was touring across the country), Indiana’s Secretly Canadian Records was in the middle of their own project of rereleasing all of Nikki Sudden’s 1980s and 1990s recorded output: his solo albums, a collaboration with Rowland S. Howard (from The Birthday Party), his incredible albums as the Jacobites (with Dave Kusworth). One can only imagine how Pavement would have been received had these releases were widely available then. This is obviously a moot point, because critics would definitely have made the Swell Maps connection; I’m just wondering if they would have been as willing to gaze back at Sudden’s 1970s oeuvre with rose-tinted pens, because this Secretly Canadian series is truly amazing in the way that it aesthetically redefines Sudden.

The Ragged School, originally released by Twin/Tone Records in 1986, was a collection of songs intended to introduce Jacobites (on this release it’s Sudden on guitars, organ, and synthesizer; Kusworth on guitar, bass, and vocals; Soundtracks beating drums and percussion; and Mark Lemon playing bass, guitars, and drum) to American audiences. And, as a rerelease, it’s a stunning introduction to those unfamiliar with Sudden’s work after the demise of Swell Maps. This album features the remastered release in its entirety (and what a remastering it is, as Sudden and Kusworth have shined the muddiness of the original release so that it’s ringing as clear as a broken bell), plus 11 rarities and a sharp-looking booklet, complete with track notes (gotta love those reminiscences, in which you’ll find a Hanoi Rocks name-drop!) and photos from the Jacobites’ German tour of 1985.

Just as Pavement in the 1990s was looking back to various 1970s jangly post-punkers for artistic inspiration, Sudden with his various collaborators in the 1980s was looking back to the 1960s electric rock-folk of the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan, and the 1970s glittery proto-punk of Marc Bolan and Johnny Thunders. Indeed, these songs have the vigor and melancholy of the best of those artists; the lyrics cover similar areas: we’re in a fog-choked world of busted relationships, nostalgia, and unreciprocated obsession. If you’re not careful when listening to them, the title of “It’ll All End Up in Tears” may very well prove prophetic about describing your listening experience.

This is best realized on “Heart of Hearts” and “Son of a French Nobleman”, which employ the same stylistic effect of starting slow and gentle — the former with ringing acoustic guitar, the latter with a warm organ — before building slowly, with percussive accents, to a triumphant ending. The effect is like running up a hill in a light drizzle, away from your lover. What really gets under the skin (in the unforgettable sense, not the irritating one) here are the vocals: they’re somewhere between the nasal twang of Rob(yn) Hitchcock and the strained bleat of Rob(ert) Zimmerman. And in the cracks and slightly off-kilter harmonies, you’ll find ecstatic misery made aural.

The songs on this rerelease range from quiet ballads such as these, to driving tambourine-shakers like “Pin Your Heart to Me”, hauntingly acoustic ballads (“Tell Me”), boombastic rockers like “Bethlehem Castle” and “Big Store (Orig.)”, and strange noisescapes (“The Old Church Steps”, which sounds suspiciously like the end of the Beatles’ “Good Morning, Good Morning” mixed with some good old-fashion backward tape loops). Oddly, these last two genres — the rockers and the oddball experimental ones — come closest to resembling the Sudden and Soundtracks of old, if not in sound, then in execution.

There’s no doubt, though, that The Ragged School is the document of a group of troubadour punks, gutter poets, and flophouse balladeers with (as one of the spookier stripped-down songs has it) “Tattered Scarves”. Yes, it’s heartbreaking. But in a way that makes you want to return to it, not because you want to want to dwell in your (and the Jacobites’) oceans of sadness, but because you want to find ways to swim out of them.