Brendan Dougherty - Sensate (2016)

Incredible, tactile and free-formed electronic composition from Berlin’s Brendan Dougherty, in which he “exploits the heavy-handed engineering of various hardware and software synthesisers, samplers and sequencers” for the ever-brilliant Entr’acte label.

Sensate explores ten pieces of pulsating, densely rich arrangements of harmonic vortices and melodic whorls giving voice to his machine’s inner thoughts in a way that’s perhaps comparable with a synaesthetic representation of google’s deep dreaming AI projections.

It’s almost difficult to locate the core of these complex, dynamic structures, seeming to emanate and grow from uncertain points in the stereo field thru thickets of thorny, roiling distortion, at times recalling a saltier analogue to Lorenzo Senni’s pointillisticT tantras or the visceral nature of Arash Moori’s light-to-sound convolutions, whilst at others recalling the jazzy thrum of Farben.

There’s something enigmatic and intangible at work here which defies easy description due to the music’s mercurial, elemental construction, broaching the unknown with a singular quality that's got as intrigued. It's one of the more original, engrossing electronic albums we've heard so far this year - highly recommended if you're into the work of Lorenzo Senni, Actress, Errorsmith or Mark Fell.