I'm Too Sentient

Stepping in as a musical match-maker, Infinite Machine has paired up Fausto Mercier & trngs, two boundary-pushing sound designers, for a fresh EP of kinetic and visceral electronics. The pair are well suited to be partners in crime onI'm Too Sentient: both share a meticulously detailed approach to sculpting sounds as well as a keen interest in producing a sonic 'uncanny valley' in their output - manipulating organic sounds until their source is barely recognisable.

Fausto Mercier opens upI'm Too SentientwithOvercorp, a dramatic opener which only seems to get more frantic over time. Unfolding like an algorithmic Fibonacci spiral, Fausto's musical ideas seem to shrink and appear within each other like fractal patterns. Towards the end of the track, the low-end drops out and is replaced by moody pad synths, an uneasy palette cleanser that glides over fidgety samples that refuse to sit still.

Next up,Bite Nails II Assert Dominanceis another cerebral hit of complex, polyrhythmic laptop music. The beginning of this track seems far more 'on-grid' thanOvercorp, but we are lulled into a false sense of security by Fausto who starts nudging samples into unexpected phrasings or squeezing new sounds into inexplicably small gaps within his drum programming. A real head-spinner of a tune!

Fausto's final offering from the split,O O Doomscrllis potentially the most frantic moment ofI'm Too Sentient. Humanoid-esque synths seem to wail through the arrangement, backed up by a punishing delivery of drum hits and manipulated organic sounds. As the title seems to suggest,O O Doomscrllcould almost be considered as a soundtrack for our age of digital disorientation and social anxiety.

trngs opens up his half of the split EP withOrganic Fabrication Core, a sonic headfuck if ever there was one. Jammed full of ideas and operating at break-neck speeds, trngs background in improvisational free jazz definitely comes to prominence in tracks like these.

Next up, trngs keeps the tempos fast withI'm Too Sentient For My Own Wellbeing- a track which sounds a bit like if Mark Fell had a breakcore side project. Musical stutters and iterative loops are abruptly swapped out for aggy kick drums which cut through the mix like a knife. The name of this song, again, nods to our accelerated virtual culture and the pressures that our contemporary information-overload can exert on us.

Rounding off the split, trngs'() %%% ()is a curious experiment across multiple temporalities and textures. Starting off serene and calm, the production degrades and glitches-out like an alien fungi permeating an ambient music culture.

An enthralling exploration of modern laptop musicianship,I'm Too Sentientis probably unlike anything you will hear this year. We suggest you press play and hold on tight.