Latest by Map 71 is called Blood Fruit (FOOLPROOF PROJECTS PRJ057)…we first heard this duo of Lisa Jayne and Andy Pyne in 2014, and for some reason I had them pegged as a poet-and-drummer thing, although Pyne had always added his electronic contributions to the situation while Lisa Jayne ranted her strange tales and turned her somewhat embittered eye on the world.
Map 71 V2 now seem to be veering in an electropop direction, perhaps absorbing influences from “downtempo” genre, not that I have a clue about what that means except for moments here which remind me of Massive Attack in a more stripped-down DIY minimalist form. There’s also a pretty convincing take on that mode of over-excited “tribal” drumming that The Boredoms used to do so well. I find that the production method has evolved such that Lisa vocals can now be heard and fit well into the mix, a problem that dogged previous releases from this band. Meanwhile Map 71 themselves claim variously to be making a psychedelic album and – on one track – the soundtrack for a folk horror movie. That latter motif hasn’t gone away since The Wicker Man began its continual ascendency in everyone’s movie list, and I think I can detect strains of it in the various Ghost Box records and their camp followers, especially Keith Seatman; and now that the cat’s out of the bag with Ben Wheatley’s horror movies, I expect folk-horror to become even more embedded in UK culture than a plate of pie and mash.
Actually Map 71 do a decent fist of things with their ‘Mandrake Sutra’ – for one thing it’s much more “produced” than their usual work, and who doesn’t enjoy a good feast of “orgiastic whispers, wails and moans” in their daily diet. That’s right, Lisa Jayne spooks it up in fine stylee with her vox humana and drags her trachea through hell to make this track. Guest musicians too, Dan Cox and Al Strachan, enrich this track with extra vox and cornet blurts, cementing its suitability as something to play on endless repeat as you watch Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club. Other pagan-magick clues appear on titles such as ‘Corn Dolly Crosshatch’ and ‘Full Body Ghost’, plus there are full-colour images by Lisa on digipak panels and insert, redolent of secret rites and rituals. From Leftfield to folk-horror in one album…how many records give you all that? From 1st March 2023.