Head Technician

Head Technician

Profane Architecture

Ecstatic Recordings

Martin Jenkins aka Pye Corner Audio aka Head Technician returns with this new album of immersive slow acid enigmas inspired by Brutalist architecture, Detroit house and UK bleep ’n bass.  Taking inspiration from his fascination with Brutalist construction, Jenkins exclusively uses Roland TR-606, MC-202 and TB-303 boxes plus the Roland System 100 modular synth to sketch out a slow, murky sound with results that are even darker and more obscure than his previous work.  Echoes of early Detroit and UK bleep & bass infiltrate the stark corridors of Profane Architecture as much as the hauntological spirits of BoC, combining to make a sound that revels in nostalgia yet yearns for the future. It’s not a new idea, but it is one that Jenkins executes with such classic style and unique character that can only lead to comparisons with acid maestros such as early Plastikman or the Analord, Richard J. James.  For moody dancers, Profane Architecture is perfect; from the oozing elan of opener First Pour thru the spheric momentum of Béton Brut and the mind-weaving acid of Formwork he establishes a slickly hypnotic sound that works its magick with more funk on the flipped, generating the tactile form of Second Pour and the ruggedly hewn groove of The New Brutalism, then closing out with the exquisite darkness of Demolition - a real highlight in his extensive and highly collectible catalogue.

Head Technician

Zones

Ecstatic Recordings

Martin Jenkins aka Pye Corner Audio returns in Head Technician garb for a slippery set of slow, plasmic acid workouts that were originally issued on a super-limited tape, and now sit heavy on wax, remastered and including bonus tracks not on the tape.  Over the years since he first mooted the PCA sound in 2010, Jenkins has used the Head Technician alter ego as a sort of evil engineer Hyde analogous to his day-to-day Jekyll, a sort of hyperstitious studio partner in a time-honoured tradition of sleeve credits ghost chasing.  Where PCA’s pieces may tend to be lustrous, optimistic, the Head Technician’s Zones LP hems to the shadows of the ‘floor with a furtive, noirish quality that works a treat in the right situations, whether soundtracking gaslamp-lit raves or midnight street patrols seeking out ne’erdowells and laudanum dealers.  Fired on a classic trinity of Roland TR-606 drum machine with an MC-202 (a beast to program, he admits) and TB-303 to sequence his baselines, it clearly makes explicit reference to the early days of Detroit techno or UK bleep ’n bass, but the vibe is more anachronistic, out-of-time, possibly thanks to his patented, lagging basslines and slowly unfolding arrangements, bridging that imaginary, dilated gap between fuzzy dancefloor head melt and curtains-drawn next day gouch out.