Here’s a nice Sunday find I’ve been keeping in my back pocket for the past week! Riding high off of Kaskade‘s dreamy Strobelite Seduction (which is still providing the soundtrack to my summer!) it’s Oceanlab‘s debut album, Sirens of the Sea.
The group is composed of the brilliant trio behind Above & Beyond (Jonathan Grant, Tony McGuinness, Paavo Siljamäki) plus one: Jessica Suissa, an adept singer with a drifting vocal quality that is positively trance ready.
The thirteen track compilation, a side-project by the group, is an engrossing experience. The main goal here seems to be a conjuration of all the sensations of the sea. Granted I’m a bit biased in my love for all things marine, but this album is a quality effort. Oceanlab’s entire album is intricately layered with ambience, echoing sea-like tones and driving pulsations of modern trance sounds. Judging by one of their only interviews, this wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill beat mashing job: “One of the tracks we’re working on right now features a 56 piece mouse choir. We went diving in Formentera too to record some noises from the dolphins.” That’s right, a mouse choir. Not sure where they got all the mice from, or if they wore coordinated outfits during recording, though I do believe it’s the same choir that did the lead vocals on Katy Perry‘s new album.
But back to good music. A majority of the album is, in fact, somewhat slow: The increasingly soaring “Ashes” and current smash single “Miracle” are examples of this. Yet in many instances, the album provides the BPM of a modern club track while retaining a sleepy nature, like the Dannii-esque “Come Home,” “If I Could Fly,” and title track “Sirens of the Sea.” The collection that the group provides is impressively disarming, providing an enveloping nature as fluid as the ocean itself.
To order Sirens of the Sea, please head over to Amazon or check out their official page here.