The musical world of Martin Jenkins’ Pye Corner Audio is a vast and mysterious one. The music is low key, sparse, and filled with shadowy twists and turns. Dark ambient hung on skeletal beats like flesh to bone, as if building a creature from things unknown and thoughts unspoken. Eerie, melancholy, and oddly groovy; a soundtrack for a haunted Danceteria located in a cavernous void between here and there.
I think it’s fair to say that without Pye Corner Audio the world of haunted electronic music, imagined scores, and heavy synth music in general would look(and sound) gravely different.
On Jenkins’ latest Pye Corner Audio release with label Quiet Details, the sublime and hazy Lake Deep Memory, he takes us in the world of amorphous ambient music. Leaving the beats for another day, this collection of free-floating and melody-driven music feels like floating through space and time. It’s a sound world oddly at peace, no trace of hauntology or cursed dance floors. It’s stunning, mysterious, and quite beautiful.
“I’ve always been inspired by the noises and submerged sounds that a lot of artists try to eradicate, such as noise, hums and hiss. Those are the quiet details that I bring to the foreground.” – Martin Jenkins
Lake Deep Memory was inspired by a gig Jenkins played in 2024 Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. It’s a place of great importance to the locals, and you can feel the heaviness of the place in the music here. There’s something almost holy about opener “Lake Deep Memory”. Wavering electronics almost sound like a massive pipe organ. Something you would hear entering some great, cavernous hall. It’s hypnotic in its repetitiveness, notes dangling in the air as if looking up from underwater and seeing sunlight shining down to break the dark above you. “Pyroclastic Flow” feels like sinking into the abyss, submerged and succumbing to the darkness. No fear, just peace. “Beneath The Noise Floor” has an urgency to it. Like some great secret hidden in the depths, waiting to be discovered.
The absolute highlight amongst many here is “Infinite Symphony”. It’s a piece filled with absolute light and joy. It’s as if you found a space of peace amidst the darkness. Pye Corner Audio worked in similar moods on Let’s Emerge! from a couple years back, and it feels like walking into home after wandering for decades. Simply stunning.
From the grand sonic gestures of “Fumarole” to the mysterious tones of “Memoria Del Agua” to stunning album closer “Volcanic Rock”, Lake Deep Memory keeps the mystery mysterious and the musical turns all-encompassing. This is yet another wonderful turn within the world of Pye Corner Audio.
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