Map 71 – Void Axis

Fourth Dimension / Foolproof Projects

Andy Pyne and Lisa Jayne, who make up the duo of Map 71, have been highlighting their hinterland that exists somewhere between myth and dreamstate since 2014. Perfectly described by Lisa’s book of words, Mutant Dreams, they inhabit and document that precious point between waking and sleeping where things appear normal, but have a touch of the surreal in the tiny details. Andy takes charge of drums and synths, lending vibrant and noisy — if slightly disturbing — beat-driven soundscapes to Lisa’s deadpan storytelling, or as happens in places, the intoning of repetitive mantras.

Spread over nine tracks and forty minutes, Void Axis (the title itself has a feeling of detachment), Map 71 do their best to draw you into the shadowy world of mystery nightclubs in prefabs on new town roundabouts and semi-mythical creatures like the seer-bird and the snake woman. “The Prefab” is a strange story of the narrator telling tales of nights out and the people she meets, but it all has an air of remove, as if it were a treatment for an updated George Orwell story.

Things are happening that sound familiar, but there is a layer of future fear that is slightly alienating. Lisa delivers in this is almost without accent and without emotion, as if recounting to somebody in the future who exists outside your experiences. Meanwhile, Andy throws hollow-sounding drums and insistent, frantic synthscapes at the whole thing, the hyperactivity being a great juxtaposition to the cool vocal delivery.

There are deep resonant drums and loops of distorted noise on “Nuclear Landscapes” and here Lisa’s vocals do sound as if they are recorded in a bunker, making the whole thing darker and more sinister. In places, as on “Minimal Bridget”, the repetitive background racket threatens to overwhelm Lisa’s mantra-like delivery of nine seemingly random words, drawn out over and over, the order changing until you are lost in the black hole of it all. There are nods to post-punk and also to the budget horrorscapes of Suicide, but on the whole, Andy’s backings are as unique as Lisa’s delivery and suit the material perfectly.

The idea behind the tale “The Future Edge” is fascinating —  I am not going into too much detail because it would ruin the effect of hearing it for the first time — is a joy, an unsettling and mysterious trip but a joy nonetheless. Between the lyrics and the harsh and jittery backing, it isn’t particularly comfortable, but that is the beauty of good art. If you have a chance to track down a copy of Lisa’s book of words then do that too; but for an introduction to their world, Void Axis is a great start.

-Mr Olivetti-