The Sunday Experience, March 2014

'Firmly established in hearts as one of the most creatively wired and left field imprints currently ploughing their wares across this fine nation today, Brighton based Foolproof Projects has been over the last ten years or more the communicative channel from which Andy Pyne in his many sonic disguises (black neck of the common loon, kellar, medicine and duty, braer rabbit et al) has sounded off. Latest release might yet prove to be the latest finest to date. But first of all apologies because we’ve had this a fair while – somehow getting itself lost under a pile of CD’s it was only upon hearing the Can Can Heads band camp / vinyl release that somewhere in the back of our mind we had vague images of having seen it lurking somewhere. And so then the Sunday morning hunt was a foot with a mission statement that read no rest until it had been secured. Limited to just 75 CD copies and an endless supply of downloads Map 71 release their debuting platter. First coming into existence by way of an unplanned appearance at last years Supernormal Festival, duo Andy Pyne (see above for resume) and poet Lisa Jayne forged an unlikely alliance buoyed by the city’s bristling art / sound scene and relocated to a studio setting to see if the live kinship forged at the festival could translate on record. Several months of on / off recordings and the 8 track self titled set emerges into the light. Initial listens might have those well versed in foolproof project product thinking that this is way off the left field radar even by Pyne’s past efforts, agreed it is out of step and jarring with its angular motifs austerely sparsely weaved retro electronics and ad hoc rhythmic jabs courting an unusually obscure and obtuse fraying which when accompanied by Jayne’s streams of narrative consciousness endow it with a chilled post punk bleakness that admirers of Rooney, Pink Military and SPK might wince at. But soon it takes hold and the mists begin to clear and matters finally settle with the parting ’Way to Bridge’ and just then and only then does it all fall into place as though someone has finally handed you the lid to a jigsaw puzzle box and for the first time you see exactly what you’ve been struggling to piece together looks like. ’Way to Bridge’ is that moment. The point where everything is drawn together and everything coalesces. It’s the point were you think – Eccentronic Research Council. Of course. That said where ERC and Maxine Peake go down the surrealistic path via the BBC Radiophonic Workshop root, Map 71 turn down the same path only to bunk off when the others aren’t looking to stroll overgrown austere pathways blanked with Clockwork Orange like bleakness leading to Cabaret Voltaire (see ‘cobalt return‘), Ludus (as on the fragmenting paranoiac edginess of ‘map seventy one’) and to a loose extent the Au Pairs (’on the fault line‘ being the prime example). From therein its advised that you start slowly working your way backwards right to the start whereupon you‘ll encounter the starkness of the Blevin Blectum like opener ’down the well’ while the psychotropic ju-ju that is ‘heat spell’ seductively spell crafts itself into the dark psychosis of an early career Siouxsie and Budgie Creatures. Essential.'