Mapa - No Automato [Gusstaff Records Promo]

It rarely happens that a project comes to life again for the release of its sophomore album after 17 years but sometimes the unexpected happens and so we see Paul Wirkus and Marcin Dymiter join forces to revive their conjunctional moniker Mapa for 2k17, releasing their second longplay piece ever via the Polish imprint Gusstaff Records on September 2nd. Coming from an avantgarde background with relations to both Jazz and Punk the pair of producers caters a quite eclectic body of work with this one, opening with "MPA Jazz" which fuses DarkJazz and Vienna-schooled Future Jazz - think "The Showroom Recordings Series #01" here - with various electro-acoustic elements and a loose general understanding of grooves whilst "Bunt Tragiczny" combines dry, harsh and scraping, roughly Electro-related beat structures with electrical buzzes and error'esque low frequency rumbles. In "Heute Tanz A" Mapa explore a raw, saw-tooth synth related take on instrumental Minimal Wave programmed with dirt cheap drum machines, "Bez EQ" brings in 8+ minutes of partly dubbed, warm organic bass bits, fragments of deconstructed Jazz as well as an overall embracing open fire atmosphere and beautifully clicking surface noise loops before "Heute Tanz B" gets deeper and amalgamates its Minimal Wave'esque foundation with carefully layered, off-harmonic pads, futuristic sweeps and more of a haunting, outerworldly feel. Furthermore we see the "Rudyment" catering ultra slow, grinding Dark Electro explorations which could be well fitting for release on labels like Bunker or Last Known Trajectory , "Nigdy Tam Nie Bylem" provides more buzzing, unprocessed lo-fi madness before the "Antibiotikum" indulges in hypnotic Electronica / Ambient crossovers for subaquatic chill out areas and the title track finally waves goodbye on a harsh and aggressive, partly even threatening SynthWave / Ingenious Dilettantes-like level for highly advanced underground dancefloors. An interesting comeback for sure.