Today I’ll present you with the track The Void by Andrea Carri and Ian Urbina. When I read the content for this post I decided to do something I don’t normally do and just copy/paste in what Ian wrote to me. It was a little hard for me to rewrite, and why would I want to rewrite the words from a real journalist?
Ian:
I am an investigative reporter and director of the journalistic non-profit, The Outlaw Ocean Project. For more background on me here’s my Wikipedia page. However, I believe musicians and journalists are both storytellers and created The Outlaw Ocean Music Project as a first-of-its-kind collaboration of such creators. In combining their mediums, these narrators have conveyed emotion and a sense of place in an enthralling new way. The result is a captivating body of music based on The Outlaw Ocean book and reporting. While reporting for 5 years at sea, Urbina built an audio library of field recordings. It featured a variety of textured and rhythmic sounds like machine-gun fire off the coast of Somalia and chanting captive deckhands on the South China Sea. Using the sound archive and inspired by the reporting, over 400 artists from more than 60 countries produced EPs in their own interpretive musical styles — be it electronic, ambient, classical or hip hop. Andrea Carri, whose track you were interested in is part of this project.
This track is part of an EP by Andrea Carri called The Thunder, which was released on February 12, 2021.
Andrea, tell us something about the track The Void!
Working on The Outlaw Ocean Music Project inspired me to alter the way I write music. It usually takes me a bit of time to transform my ideas into complete tracks. With this project, I would typically compose my music organically immediately after reading chapters of The Outlaw Ocean — such as “Storming the Thunder,” “A Rusty Kingdom” and “Adelaide’s Voyage.” At times, it took me longer to read a chapter than it did to write the music influenced by it. Ian has done incredible work with The Outlaw Ocean Project and investigating the nuances of a topic we often ignore. The things I read woke me up to a world I never would have known, compelling me to learn and understand more about what is happening on the ocean. Because of Ian’s book, I began to follow Sea Shepherd and their campaigns around the world. Music has an ability to convey messages fundamental in alerting people on issues such as there, and I hope listeners can dive deeper into the realm of The Outlaw Ocean through my melodies.
Thank you very much for this Ian and Andrea!
There is a couple of links in the text about, so if you want to learn more, please click on them!