This is a really unique approach to journalism and music in so many ways. On the one hand, it brings the message of Ian’s reporting to a wider audience and encourages individuals to look deeper into these issues. I had previously been aware of the environmental devastation brought by overfishing and pollution, but reading The Outlaw Ocean made me more aware of the lawlessness at sea as well as the human suffering and exploitation it causes. On an artistic level, the use of field recordings and setting them to music really heightens the emotional and human element of these stories. 

As a musician, I’ve never worked with vocals in this way before. With a lot of the tracks, I chose a piece of Ian’s prose to focus the subject matter and evoke the feeling of the song even before building the beat around the selected clip. These vocal samples added another layer of innovativeness, given the story had already been told by Ian through words and I was using his voice and field recordings to set the scene of these stories with my songs. I added in sounds of waves, birds cawing and distorted radio sounds throughout the album to also make the listeners feel as if they were at sea themselves.

J. Lorenzo