There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest and least understood are the world’s oceans. Too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to the unbridled extremes of human behavior — some of it heroic, most of it not. The Outlaw Ocean is a New York Times Best Selling book that explores this lawless realm and the diversity of human rights, labor and environmental abuses occurring at sea. Drawing on more than five years of reporting, most of it offshore, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this world and their risk-fraught lives. A gripping adventure story, a stunning expose, this reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing (and sometimes inspiring) reality of a floating world that connects us all, where anyone can do anything because virtually no one is watching.
Ian has released audio and video recordings from five years of reporting at sea, available to a handpicked number of electronic music artists to create collaborative albums, each focusing on a specific chapter or issue featured within the book.
As a lifetime enthusiast of marine life and environmentalist, I was naturally drawn to the chapter “The Next Frontier”. The story of the delicate war between marine life and human greed, the chapter follows Greenpeace ships as they peacefully protest oil drilling in the Arctic, and seek out evidence of protected marine life to legally halt environmentally irresponsible drilling in Brazil. I pulled their stories together into one narrative, anthropomorphizing the ship to sigh and creak with actual field recordings morphed with samples and wavetables from my own voice.
I’ll be updating this post as I release videos to accompany each song on the five-track EP for the next little while.
I truly hope you enjoy the Living Atlantis (presave it here).
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why are we racing the ocean to the finish line? protect her. @ian_urbina #theoutlawocean