Martin Jenkins has built a steady career out of making slow-building, electronic-based music that feels cryptic, eerie, dread-inducing. Pye Corner Audio is the essence of hauntology; music inspired by synth-based scores and low-key techno beats that are as hypnotic as they are cinematic. Albums like Sleep Games, Black Mills Tapes, Prowler, and The Endless Echo show Jenkins’ knack for cinematic shifts and subtle techno touches while building immense atmosphere.
In 2022 Jenkins took Pye Corner Audio from Ghost Box to label Sonic Cathedral and released the sunny Let’s Emerge!, an album that was the antethesis to what had come before. Gone were the swirling, haunted techno rhythms and tape his synth melodies. In there place was a remarkable shift to daylight. Sunny expositions with some help from Ride’s Andy Bell on guitar.
After 2024s excellent and dark The Endless Echo, Jenkins has returned to Sonic Cathedral with the excellent More Songs About the Sun. Collaborating once again with Andy Bell, Jenkins has once again brought Pye Corner Audio into an uplifting headspace. Touching on dream pop, trip hop, and effervescent ambient, More Songs About the Sun sees the shaded areas being filled with morning light.
“Euphoria” brings us into the album with glistening optimism and tasteful melancholy. Bringing to mind everything from Harmonia to Stars of the Lid all with an almost anthemic quality, this song feels like a new era for Pye Corner Audio. “Analogue Dreams” has a sunrise glow to it as bubbling electronics seem to rise from some depth as a loping rhythm emanates from the sound. With Andy Bell’s guitar it almost feels like My Bloody Valentine in an uplifting mood. “Cycle” is all synth pop drive and road trip acceleration. The vocals only add the feeling of a New Order/Chemical Brothers collab.
Elsewhere “Greet The Dawn” has Boards of Canada vibes, which continue into the excellent “Eight Thousand Years”. “Inverted Dreams” floats in dystopian shine, while “Rays of Sunshine” brings to mind some exotic, off-world beach colony where two suns rise and set and the moon is always present. “My Shimmer” has an 80s feel to it, somewhere between To Live and Die in LA and Howard Jones going ambient.
Pye Corner Audio once again takes a sunnier turn into sparkling electronic optimism with More Songs About the Sun. Jenkins has more to give then late night grooves and Gothic vibes. More Songs About the Sun proves that.
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