Belfast-based musician Connor Dougan dons his Deathbed Convert guise for a dive into healing binaural beats. The album, titled Music For Wave States, makes major use of field recordings captured in Clare, Donegal, Wexford, the Czech Republic and his hometown. So much so that these soundscapes, the weather, the elements, become a central character. Surf soothes in swirling, phased tides. Rain falls in gently crackling showers. Tape effects create whistling, rushing winds. Birdsong often colouring Dougan’s chimes and keys. 

The production is intimate and infinitely layered. Its loops looking back to post-2000s post-rock, IDM and “glitch”. Teasing textures from sustained minor chords and glacial guitar. Repetitive picking, carefully caressed cascades, sometimes squeezed backwards, are set against a symphonic, synthesised sheen. A hushed serenity of hum and drone. 

Theta Sweep 417Hz could pass for something from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. A cue from a strange Sci-Fi / folk horror `70s kids’ TV show. Evocative electronica produced for schools to accompany spooky poems that celebrate the changing seasons. The Eno / Lanois-esque Delta Dusk 852Hz is a glide through pastorals of pedal-steel-like vibrato and glissando. Theta Chant 852Hz unhurriedly unfolds, revealing a spectral, heavenly choir. The 2 closing pieces Delta Seabed 396Hz and Alpha Sunset 174Hz are more defined, romantic, reflective piano themes. The 13 tracks, together, amount to a slow, stately suite. A smooth, seamless, warm, beatless float. Up here in the mountains, surrounded by a vista of snow and skeletal trees, it’s served as my soundtrack as I light the stove, start the coffee and watch, wait for the sun. 

Deathbed Convert’s Music For Wave States can be ordered directly from Touch Sensitive.