I’m back at the ultimate Salford grotspot to celebrate the music of the mighty Swell Maps in their current incarnation as Swell Maps C21.

Support comes from Dutch group Geo who are enjoyably unhinged and have a very heavy low-end bass groove that works a treat with the huge speakers in the venue. Swell Maps were always a curious proposition (and I’m certainly not an expert), more of a loose musical collective who were active in the early 70s but having put out a single in 1977 get lumped in with Punk but really they pre-dated and post-dated it at the same time and tonight reflects that very well.

Leading the celebrations is original member Jowe Head – who has some art school history with Manchester. In tight formation around him are the great David Callaghan (a brilliant artist in his own right and as part of the brain frazzling Moonshake), drummer Jeff Bloom, singer and keyboardist Lucie Rejchrtova and – festooned with a clankening of badges, Post-Punk gun for hire and fellow IdealCopyist – the great Lee McFadden.

Everyone shares vocal duties and lyric sheets are swapped around as the set isn’t carved in stone. We get lots of the visceral, Motorik Swell Maps sound but also new material, and some nice nods to the extended discography of the band including a lovely version of ‘Jellybabies’ the song Epic Soundtracks recorded with Robert Wyatt in 1981 (beautifully sung by Lucie) –

that one in particular sits this in context with that curious, hard to fathom strain of 70s British music that covers This Heat, the Canterbury Scene and the ROI thing. Perfect. Alas things are running late (not Swell Maps fault) – but there’s no way I’m leaving before a closing medley of glorious fuzzy ‘Midget Submarines’ and ‘Full Moon in My Pocket’ which veers quite logically into ‘Mother Sky’ by Can – which is ringing in my ears as my cab driver veers in out of the mad traffic back to the station. We made it! Hooray!