The luminous, shoegaze-tinged sound of
Let's Emerge! was so different from anything else in
Pye Corner Audio's catalog that it left listeners wondering what
Martin Jenkins would do next. As it happens,
The Endless Echo's contemplation of the passing of time and the illusions it creates returns to the pensive, mysterious moods more familiar to the project's body of work. However, all it takes is hearing the sculpted beats and finely meshed synths of "Decision Point" to appreciate that
Jenkins is back in his element and using all of the tools at his disposal brilliantly. As always, he imbues the tones he chooses and the way he arranges them with an evocative sense of storytelling. A weathered patina lends organic grit to "On the Clock," suggesting that its library music-meets-disco hybrid has been tucked away, moldering, for decades. His use of space within his sound-worlds also remains unrivaled, whether on ambient pieces like "Lacunae," where the booming percussion seems to lurk fathoms below clouds of shimmering pads, or on more danceable tracks such as "Deeptime," which lives up to its name with its four-on-the-floor pulse and cavernous sweep. It's also fitting that
The Endless Echo's mix of brief and lengthy pieces heightens its expressions of wildly varying temporal states. With the headlong rush of "Chronos" and the dusty serenity of "Archaic" (a feeling he expands on more poignantly with "Vault" and "Forgotten"),
Jenkins captures time's extremes; with the urgent arpeggios and unhurried washes of "Momentary Permanence," he expresses its essential paradox. On "Written in Water"'s collage of church bells, a rushing river, and distant brass, he even channels something akin to déjà vu.
Jenkins' music doesn't need to be surprising to be excellent, and it's no surprise that
The Endless Echo exemplifies everything for which
Pye Corner Audio and
Ghost Box are renowned. ~ Heather Phares
