Utilizing music within the context of journalism can be incredibly impactful. With music, you can communicate very special emotions through a piece that can entirely change the way you experience an idea. When crafting our tracks for The Outlaw Ocean Music Project, we wanted to capture the feelings we had while reading the book and especially the emotions we experienced while reading the chapters “A Rusty Kingdom” and “Jail Without Bars.” We then combined those specific tones with the general mood of our songs, building on sound samples and instruments we thought would compliment them best. The resulting EP was a work unlike anything we’ve ever produced.

We ultimately hope listeners feel the way we did when reading The Outlaw Ocean. This book was incredibly intriguing to us considering how it is written from a first-person perspective, allowing a reader to visualize and almost relive the moments described in vivid detail by Ian. More than that, it was interesting to gain insight through Ian’s immersive reporting into all of the things happening at sea that we normally don’t hear about.

Their Dogs Were Astronauts