Bleep

Martin Jenkins returns with his latest Pye Corner Audio album The Endless Echo. It’s been a minute since we heard The Head Technician in that introspective, esoteric mood; his most recent ventures have found him mixing acid solutions for Emotional Response and creating resplendent psychedelia for Sonic Cathedral. The Endless Echo, however, is a marked difference from the Sun worshipping warmth of 2022’s Let’s Emerge!, returning to the sci fi indebted hauntology of his Ghost Box works. As he reaches into the sonic library once more, he taps into anachronistic anxieties by exploring the intersections between past, present, and future.

If the quotes on the cover provide any clues, The Endless Echo is the story of a time travelling scientist’s descent into chaos and corruption, soundtracked by action/thriller paced synth pulses. More than that, the album’s sound design and emotional palettes chart any number of narrative timelines, constructing a tension fuelled space opera through guttural growls, distorted winds, and ethereal waves. From the beginning it promises an epic synthwave odyssey with the propulsive kicks and chord progressions of ‘Decision Point’, further evoked in the gradual melt of acid tinged synth loops in ‘On the Clock’, with percussion sourced from power line snaps and sizzles. The tolling bell of ‘Written in Water’ brings us back to the Earth’s present day, featuring murmuring ripples and whispering spray filtered through tape loop haze, while the techno drum machine droplets of ‘Deeptime’ plunge back into the temporal river.

Shifting from explorative synthscapes to beat driven cinematics, The Endless Echo sees Pye Corner Audio once again exhibiting his conceptual prowess.