Jowe Head is a musician and artist from the Midlands of England, now living in Hackney, in east London.  He started his musical career in his home town of Solihull with various school friends in 1972, a project that came to be known as Swell Maps.  This group emerged in the late 1970s, are now known as pioneers of what is now referred to as the “Alternative Rock” or “Post-Punk”scene.  They set up their own independent record label, and mixed Punk Rock with experimental and psychedelic sounds.
 
Swell Maps released four singles and two albums in a brief but dramatic career, that led to them topping the UK independent charts, and influencing bands such as Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Blur.  When they broke up, Jowe joined Television Personalities.  Ten years with the TVPs saw Jowe making more influential records, touring Europe regularly, and playing in Japan and the USA.
 
At the same time, Jowe has been evolving his own visual art imagery and practice.  As well as painting in oils and acrylic paint, Jowe’s other main pre-occupations are drawing and print-making.  He also designs his own record and CD covers, and has painted murals, made films, and he also makes collages, sculptures and clocks using recycled junk. As well as many solo and collaborative exhibitions, he has helped to run a community art centre in his adopted home district of Hackney.  
 
Jowe continues to make challenging music in the UK, Europe and the USA.  He has been leader of London-based bands called Angel Racing Food, and The Demi-Monde.  His latest band is called Infernal Contraption.  Another recent musical project is called Eleventh Hour Adventists, a collaboration with cellist / vocalist Jasmine Pender (aka Rotten Bliss).