MAP - "MAP 7 No.1 (Another Installment Of Hiss)" (MAP Tapes MAP7) 1981

MAP, what is 'MAP'? I hear you inquire.
MAP,as in map tapes, are the initials of Mark A. Phillips of 5XOD fame,yes one half of The Dada Computer with long time collaborator Robert Lawrence. All of this should be common knowledge to regular visitors to these unhallowed pages;but if it isn't, WHY NOT?!
Map Tapes have released a veritable ship containers worth of tapes over the preceding decades,and the most ambitious,if only in size was MAP 7.A work that came in 10 60 minute volumes,dwarfing Danny and the Dressmakers four and a half hour rock opera "200 Cancellations" by the small matter of five and a half hours!
Like the aforementioned Rock Opera,this voluminous epic has little to do with the coherent storyline of a Jesus Christ Superstar style, concept, and is more just a trawl through the impressive recorded legacy of Mark Phillips from the year 1981.
Don't expect the finely honed home computer music of 5XOD or The Dadacomputer. This is far more in the UK DIY tradition of improvised electronica,with healthy lashings of tape hiss bulking out the fizzy casio's and buzzing organs. We also encounter for the first time, the Radio four style 'play for today' voice of Suisse.Which i assume is pronounced as a version of Suzie; otherwise it is the French word for Switzerland.
The tape ends with a minimal synth version of the classic "You've Lost that Loving Feeling", which was also done, very craply, the year before, by the Human League;who also managed to destroy Glitter's immortal "Rock'n'Roll part 2".Not so here, as this is probably the best track on the tape.
Wonderful DIY electronica,full of warm fuzzy intimate strangeness,as if you were listening into someones private conversations through the wall of a neighbouring room.Its just that the other room is some 30 years in the future.


Track Listing:

01 Play For Today
02 Links the world
03 Dominate and Be Great
04 Oh! Soweto
05 Begin Begging
06 Enduring is Endearing
07 Anyone Can Be..
08 Siberian Swing
09 Images of Youth
10 'You're My Heaven'
11 Computershop
12 Play Again Tomorrow
13 Ralph Was Right!
14 Funtime
15 94 Days
16 Generator
17 Vanity Sluts
18 You've Lost That Loving Feeling

DOWNLOAD another digital installment of analogue hiss HERE!