Description

Pye Corner Audio releases a new album, Lets Emerge!, for Sonic Cathedral. Its his first studio outing for the label following the acclaimed live recording Social Dissonance, which came out earlier this year, and it features Ride guitarist Andy Bell playing on five of its ten tracks. From the first glimpse of the artwork to the first note of the music its a marked deviation from Pye Corner Audios more traditional shadowy sounds. Whereas his last outing for Ghost Box (2021s Entangled Routes) was inspired by the underground fungal pathways through which plants communicate, this one is very much above ground, bathed in sunlight and acid-bright psychedelia.

This is a departure to sunnier climes, but a departure nonetheless, says Pye Corner Audio, aka Martin Jenkins. Its something that Id been thinking about for a while. I try to tailor my work slightly differently for the various labels that I work with, and this seems to fit nicely with Sonic Cathedrals ethos. Designer Marc Jones bold and ultra vivid artwork consciously references the likes of LFO, Spacemen 3 and the early output of Stereolab. I think it mixes together many of my earliest influences, explains Martin. Ive been a long-time fan of Spacemen 3 and Stereolab.

Their moments of repetition and drone have always seeped into what Ive tried to create.

I was living in a small apartment and Id stripped down my studio set-up when I was recording this album. This enabled me to focus on a few key pieces of equipment and explore them fully. The recordings were fleshed out by Andy Bell, who Martin first met at the Sonic Cathedral 15th birthday party at The Social in London back in 2019 the same show that became the live album Social Dissonance.

New alliances were formed and friendships made in that basement in Little Portland Street, recalls Martin. When I met Andy, we agreed that we needed to work together in some way. After Id remixed a few tracks from his album The View From Halfway Down, he kindly repaid the favour. The end results mastered in New York by acclaimed engineer Heba Kadry are incredible, from the first stirrings of opener De-Hibernate, via the glorious Haze Loops and Saturation Point, the album slowly but surely awakens, blinking and feeling its way into the light. It all culminates in the epic closing track Warmth Of The Sun which, with its vocal harmonies and acid breakdown, is seven and a half minutes of pure release.

That ones about lifes simple pleasures, concludes Martin. The Beach Boys, tremolo guitars, infinite drones, Spacemen 3. Lets emerge from this darkened era and feel the Warmth Of The Sun. The last few years have seen huge changes, both personally and in a wider perspective. The album title is a reaction to this, a collective (tentative) sigh of relief. Heres to new beginnings and a sense of hope.

CREDITS Recorded by The Head Technician Mastered by Heba Kadry Guitars on tracks 1, 2, 4, 6 and 10 by Andy Bell.