Forty Minutes Of Pye Corner Audio

In my head I'd done a Pye Corner Audio Sunday mix quite recently. On checking, it turns out that that mix and post was in March 2022, nearly two years ago. Martyn Jenkins is pretty prolific, his monthly releases onto Bandcamp the tip of the iceberg. He recently re- released his 2015 album Prowler, seven slices of Pye Corner modular paranoia and dark radiophonic ambience. It felt like a Pye Corner Audio Mix Two was in order. Almost all of these tracks come from releases in the last two years, uploaded to Pye Corner Audio's Bandcamp page as free downloads/ pay what you like. It's a treasure trove of dark ambient, squiggly acid, subterranean techno, analogue rave and lovely, if sometimes unsettling drones. I wanted to include a pair of remixes, his remix of First, I Heard Colours by Principles Of Geometry from 2022 and his remix of Lack Of Sleep by Maps from last year but in the end neither really fitted in tone. Another Sunday, another mix. 

I try to keep these Sunday mixes to between thirty minutes and forty five minutes, partly for reasons of discipline (trying to limit yourself in terms of time or space is a good thing I think), partly because it's a good amount of time as a soundtrack to other activities- cooking tea or driving to work for instance- and partly I think because being brought up on home made cassette compilations, it's the same timing as one side of a c90. There's so much Pye Corner Audio material It would have been easy to spin this out for a couple of hours but I kept it just under forty five minutes. You can still download the first Pye Corner Audio mix which can go on side two of that tape. 

Forty Minutes Of Pye Corner Audio Two

• Winter Drone For Christmas
• Unmarked Reel Two, Track One
• Rotational Squelch
• Cabaret Sauvage
• Stregan Acid
• Skip Function
• Dirty Window Of Opportunity
• Acid Addendum
• Seen From Above
• Somewhere There's A Sunrise

Winter Drone For Christmas is exactly what it says, released in December 2023 and the kind of Christmas music I can get behind. Unnerving and soothing at the same time, modular synth drones becoming 

Unmarked Reel Two, Track One was one of two tracks given away as a free download in 2010, a series of drones and noises. It was paired with Transmission Six: Sunken Village. Track titles are a Pye Corner Audio speciality. 

Rotational Squelch kicks things up a gear, an acid banger from February 2021. 

Cabaret Sauvage came out in August 2023, music for a summer rave, one where there is precious little light and smoke fills every space around you. There's a funky guitar riff in there too that sends it in a My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts direction.

Stregan Acid was part of a four track EP titled Midnite Acid, out in April 2021. Hiss Wave is one of the labels attached to this release to which I'll add dark, kosmic acid. The squelched out bassline and hi hats are seriously deep and intense. See also last year's Mayday Acid which I meant to include here but didn't. 

Skip Function, from December 2021, opens with oscillating bleeps and some calming tones, slowing things down a notch in this mix. 

Dirty Window Of Opportunity dates from April 2022 and is a return to analogue acid dance, bouncing bassline, rattling electronic percussion, machine handclaps and a John Carpenter- esque topline. There's some daylight and sunshine poking through in this one. 

Acid Addendum came out on 1st December 2023, an advent treat, most unseasonal sounding and a blinding piece of music- crashing drums, 808 squiggles, hissing percussion and utterly danceable. 

Seen From Above was released in April 2023, another dark, rhythmic thumper. This one is late 80s/ early 90s acid but with some of that late 70s/ early 80s post- punk/ Throbbing Gristle feel. Smothered with lovely hiss too. 

Somewhere There's A Sunrise, a title with some optimism in it, came out in April 2020, a month into the first Covid lockdown with the comment from Martyn, 'Holding on for that sunrise...'. That whole period, lockdowns and later on tiers, the sudden and dramatic changes brought to everyone by the pandemic and (at that stage, late April 2020) with no end in sight, is a strange world to put yourself back into- it feels recent but remote too. Somewhere There's A Sunrise is the product of being confined to home for 23 hours a day, an optimistic piece of analogue electronic music, with a hint of Italian house in there somewhere.