PYE CORNER AUDIO Vinilo y CD

Review: If you at first mistakenly read the title of the new Pye Corner Audio box set as "Where Things Are Now: No Tomorrow", you're not alone - Martin Jenkins' effortless blend of retro-nostalgia and forward-facing production is a keen match for reflexive cynicisms like this. His use of sizzling vintage audio-tropes could only have been achieved in the 21st Century and helps foster a reinstated optimism. The name of the full series is actually Where Things Are Hollow; and while two volumes have been released already, a third original one now comes added here, on top of a full remix roundoff featuring Alessandro Cortini, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and John Talabot, producing this rather banging four-volume set.

Review: Pye Corner Audio is one of the fundamental projects on Ghost Box, as Martin Jenkins indulges his hauntological synth fantasies on an increasingly fertile seam of investigation where drone, wave and death disco can all intersect. Jenkins has never been trapped by retro-fetishism with his analogue sound, and on The Endless Echo he's all the more inspired as he meditates on themes of science fiction and the illusory nature of time. Throbbing, chugging beatdowns sit comfortably alongside spatial, beatless investigations, all sculpted with the masterful touch that comes from considerable experience and a generous assortment of vintage boxes.

Review: Martin Jenkins aka Pye Corner Audio has been a busy man. He ended a fine trio of albums last year with Entangled Routes, then dropped a live album on this label early in the year, and now quickly follows it up with yet another fine long player. Ride guitarist Andy Bell plays on five of the tunes and is a collection that comes heated by plenty of sun and coloured with bright acid psychedelics. Says the man himself, "I try to tailor my work slightly differently for the various labels that I work with, and this seems to fit nicely with Sonic Cathedral's ethos." He has sure done that.

Review: Back in 2016, Martin Jenkins unveiled the first instalment of a "loose trilogy" of vaguely conceptual albums for the Ghost Box label. Entangled Routes is the third and final part of this trilogy and lands two years after its predecessor, Hollow Earth. Though not expressly acknowledged within the music, Jenkins' inspiration this time round was apparently "mycorrhizal networks" - subterranean networks of funghi that transfer water, carbon and other minerals and nutrients to the roots of plants. Musically, what's on offer is intoxicating and far-sighted, with Jenkins mixing up trippy ambient psychedelia with modular-rich, melodious electronica, throbbing, arpeggio-driven dancefloor cuts and what would once have been called IDM. As usual, the album is full of great ideas, beautifully executed, and sequenced in such a way as to provide a genuine aural journey.