A conceptual mix album and experimental film based on a journey down into the Eastern Pool of the Mariana Trench and back again.
Project:
Concept Mix Series 001: Deep Sea Excursion
The Project:
A conceptual album accompanied by watery footage filmed in various locations around the world.
The Music:
The arrangement on the album is a hybrid creation of found sounds, sample libraries, pre-recorded loops, foley, software synthesisers, drum samplers, and original MIDI sequences.
Some of the sounds and synthesiser presets are heavily processed while others remain almost untouched. A few grooves, loops, and sounds will probably be recognisable to other artists, producers, and musicians who have access to the same libraries, sample packs, soft synths and presets.
Artistically, I’ve never been too precious about using loops, sounds and presets “out of the box” since it’s always about contextualisation and recontextualisation. In the hands of different artists the same set of samples and presets can be used in vastly different ways just as two skilled guitarists can use the same guitar chords and scales differently according to their own musical sensibilities and tone.
The process also inherently blurs the line between “original music” and pre-existing audio elements that might appear in other set lists or music out there. It’s an homage to both remix and “edit” culture and to my days as a live performer and DJ on the underground techno scene in Tokyo.
The Film:
The footage has been filmed on various digital cameras and mobile phones over the course of 15 years or so. It includes, among other places, the water fountains in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan; the jellyfish tank in the Durban Aquarium in South Africa; running water from the Japanese Garden in the Kalamegdan Fortress in Belgrade, Serbia; and various locations around France and Paris. Many additional clips were created in our apartment in Belgrade during the Covid lockdown by blowing bubbles into various bottles, cups and receptacles filled with water and filming the results with a macro lens.
The original idea for the video was a simple gradient fade from light blue to blue black on the descent and blue black to light blue on the ascent, but it lacked dynamism and was ultimately uninteresting. This was solved by layering processed clips of watery things over the fade using varying levels of opacity, speed, and intensity to create a feeling of traveling underwater.
The Process:
The album is created through a stream of consciousness process where each section evolves directly out of the sounds and arrangement preceding it. The entirety of Deep Sea Excursion can be traced back to an initial reaction to the kick and rumble that now plays in the Mesopelagic Zone (200m).
Samples, loops and presets are auditioned and added to arrangement if they work, or might work, in the context of the project. It’s a process of recognising not only what a sound is but what it can be further down the line. For example a sample or loop may be sonically interesting but lack the correct feel or timing, or have a fantastic rhythm but be out of key, or lack the correct timbre. The initial stages of development are filled with many of these “place holders”. Samples often contain an ephemeral energy that makes them appealing in the first place and no amount of tweaking can replicate them, so these types are pushed and pulled into place in a way that they retain their magic but fit into their new sonic surroundings.
Other place holder sounds are often explicitly chosen to be later reworked into a MIDI sequence controlling a soft-synth or drum sampler – especially where working in MIDI gives more control over the sound and its timing. More often than not though a hybrid situation arises where both the MIDI sequence and the sample/loop are layered together and the best of both sources is utilised.
In addition, original MIDI synth and drum parts are also created to flesh out more melodic sections or to otherwise enhance some aspect of the arrangement. Here either a decent preset will suffice or deeper sound design is performed to create a more unique or fitting sound.
Once a semblance of cohesion emerges everything is further refined and reworked as needed and more bits are added and shaped as each section of the album grows.
History:
Deep Sea Excursion has been in some sort of creative process since at least 2010, if not earlier. In the late 2000’s I was performing a live techno set regularly on the underground scene in Tokyo and one of my dear friends and collaborators at the time was a DJ and Promoter by the name of Dave Twomey. He used to run a very popular underground event called Mariana, which focused on the deeper side of the techno scene at the time.
Deep Sea Excursion was initially conceived as a live set to play at his event.
The oldest project file I have on archive dates back to January 1st 2013, but I know for a fact this project existed before then because I remember showing Dave an early prototype of the set at my studio in Harajuku while I was still living in Tokyo.
I left Tokyo at the end of 2011, so this project started in at least 2009/2010 or even earlier.
Unfortunately Dave was diagnosed with cancer in February 2010 and his focus shifted to wellness and treatment, and my move to Europe placed the set on hold.
We stayed in touch as much as possible until his death in 2016, but he never heard the set again.
So this project is dedicated to his memory. He was a staunch supporter of my music, and is directly responsible for me being signed to Trapez Records in Cologne, Germany. Dave was a key player in my success both on the Tokyo and world stage and working on this project on and off over the years has been a way of keeping him in mind and spirit.
Technicalities vs. Artistic Licence:
Color:
Colors are no longer visible to the human eye at 150m below sea level. Any depth beyond 200m is in complete darkness.
In the video we see color all the way down since we are inside the submersible at all times and it is shining search lights out into the water.
Time.
The mix is one hour but covers both descent and ascent into the trench. This is because the time slot for the live show would have been an hour or so.
In reality, with modern technology, a round trip to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and back again is roughly 4 hours, so the album covers the journey in a quarter of real world time.
I experimented with slowing the set down 2x and 4x but many of the samples suffer from severe artefaction at these extreme warp levels and the set loses any sense of cohesion.
Interesting Facts:
Deep Sea Excursion is exactly one hour long.
The BPM is 125.
The project contains about 200 tracks in total, with around between 15 to 30 tracks on average playing simultaneously at any given time.
The album contains around eight to nine sections based on depth from surface, but the elements from each track are interwoven in such a way that no single “song” really exists.
The whole album is a giant loop – the end of the set plays seamlessly into the start again if set up correctly.
The project was started in around 2010.
The signature “giant squid eye” that appears on the album cover and at the bottom of the Eastern Pool (in the film) was a happy accident. While filming a deep blue glass goblet filled with water from the top down and wobbling it gently I noticed that it looked like a giant watery eye watching us from the depths.
The film is a kind of visual palindrome: it pivots around the Eastern Pool section and the ascent mirrors the descent.
The film is also a visual loop; it begins and ends with the same shot.
Synopsis:
A conceptual mix album and experimental film based on a journey to the Eastern Pool of the Mariana Trench and back again.
Cast and crew:
Shane BerryYear: +/- 2010 – 2025.
Length: 60 min.
Format: Color; 1080p HD; Sound.