Cetacea

Istanbul, Turkey

Tall Tales

DowntempoElectronic

Behind the Music

Often there are certain things that people regularly talk about and focus on — events happening in the news that we are always confronted with and pay attention to. Then there are things that people don’t talk about, oftentimes because they don’t even see it or know it’s happening. And things like that will continue to be ignored until someone makes the effort to bring awareness to the topic. That’s what Ian has done through his reporting in The Outlaw Ocean and through this music project. 

We as humans are programmed to listen to music. It inherently draws our attention, making us contemplate the greater meaning behind a song and maybe even inspire particular feelings within us. As such, I tried to capture a range of emotions with my tracks. Each song has a different feel to it — curiosity, sorrow, anxiety, hope. My goal was to tell a story through feelings that a listener may interpret however they want.

Cetacea
About Cetacea

Working on this project since the end of 2018, after the release of their debut album “Dimensional Comprehension,” independent artist/bedroom producer Cetacea has released three singles: “Hands,” “Blue” and “Luminosity.” The Istanbul, Turkey-based artist aims to achieve groovy yet dreamy sounds with the heavy use of synths in their songs. The lyrics of these songs include a wide variety of topics, from meaningful and personal stories to deep thoughts about the secrets of the universe. Not being defined by a specific genre, Cetacea prefers to refer to their work as indie/electronica, if necessary.

The name Cetacea comes from the marine biology term "Cetacea, Cetaceans" a combination of Latin word Cetus (general name for “large sea creatures”) and the suffix "-acea" (“of the nature of”).

Winner of the 2021 Scripps Howard Award for Excellence in Innovation in Journalism

The Journalism behind the Music

All music in this project is based on The Outlaw Ocean, a New York Times Best-Selling book by Ian Urbina that chronicles lawlessness at sea around the world. This reporting touches on a diversity of abuses ranging from illegal and overfishing, arms trafficking at sea, human slavery, gun running, intentional dumping, murder of stowaways, thievery of ships and other topics.

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