Brighton duo Map 71 clopping into view with their latest release The Feral Jinx (FOOLPROOF PROJECTS PRJ063).
This is the duo of Andy Pyne and Lisa Jayne, who I think we’ve been following since their debut release, and now here they are in their 13th year in showbiz. They keep changing what they’re doing, and though they started life as an abrasive post-punkish thing with poetic raps from the plain-spoken Lisa, they’ve gradually morphed into their present shape which involves a lot more sampled instruments added to the basic drumming-and-voice proposition. They also claim to be doing more free improvisation and are not afraid to create “soundscapes”. For some tracks on Feral Jinx, this tends to mean that Lisa Jayne’s vocals are transformed into another instrument in the mix, for instance on the wordless instrumental ‘Shadow Strata’. Fans who enjoy her somewhat confrontational stance might be more rewarded by ‘Rayshara Dow’, which may have drawn subconscious influences from world affairs during year 2025, as well as the intense summer heat.
This art-music version of Map 71 does indeed recast the singer – enriched with plenty of studio echo to emphasise the grain of her emotional wails – into a new role of sorts, not exactly that of Damo Suzuki but perhaps a bit more like Clare Torry on that Pink Floyd LP. Album title hints vaguely at the supernatural forces they celebrated more openly on Blood Fruit in 2023. Pretty good; at least their forays into free improvisation have not led them down the pathway of self-indulgent 25-minute tracks, and everything here remains a manageable pop-song duration. (30/03/2026)