Oceans EP By M. Cross Dougherty

 

Oceans EP

By

M. Cross Dougherty

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

This style of music by M. Cross Dougherty is something I adore, descriptive electronic ambient tonal delights and about one of my favourite subjects Oceans, as I live on the coast of the Mediterranean this fits me beautifully. Here we have 5 crafted short form narratives that manifest the sounds, moods, the undulation of the waves, and more of the said subject matter blissfully.

M. Cross Dougherty is known for his atmospheric, synth-driven releases and on Oceans he gifts us something quite transformative and deeply meditative too. The opening piece called Undulated is our first nautical location of timbre, the gentle undulation of tone on this piece is a veritable dreamy like oasis of vibration, and softly rising and descending synths in a classy start to the release.

Expectations soon follows, a piece that has a base ambient construct, but only diverges slightly from its inception, leaving the mists of musical time to be pulled to and fro by the listener, and one that reminds me of a the more ambient material that synth supremo Kevin Kendle might manifest.

Floods has a tentative start, one that builds and adds a layer of percussion and energy as it moves onwards, the sounds contained within leave the listener with a sense of expectation, of where the piece perhaps is intended to go, reminding me in structure and vibration, in a similar style that can sometimes be found by artists like Anantakara.

The penultimate offering is entitled Momentary, and quite bizarrely reminds me of one of our tracks, I refer exactly to an album that Chrissie Sheppard and I released in 2024 called When The Sun Has Legs. That release describes the event of a storm over the ocean near our home, and the elevated synth tone here reminds me of that day manifesting music that related to an impending oceanic disturbance over the lapis seas. The artist has manifested a clever track here, one that is beautifully descriptive, but also quite emotionally powerful as well.

The concluding narrative has a reversal within its structures that is compelling, the music twists back on its self in a slice of electronic mastery that I sometimes use to add extra layers and effects myself, there is also a sense of a tonal uplift here that ushers forth the final parting wave of the ocean, as it retreats on the piece Bits.

Oceans EP by M. Cross Dougherty is just the album I needed today to bring a little extra creativity into my mind, it is artistically thoughtful and created mindfully, and has all the elements of a truly fascinating and evolving musical narrative based solidly within the ambient and electronic music genres. Personally I loved it, and I was able to get thoroughly lost with the tone and timbre of the weave of the EP with consummate ease.