Philippe Petit describes himself as a “Musical-Travel-Agent” and I believe that description is especially apt on “Deep-sea Creatures,” as he takes us on a voyage to the bottom of the ocean. Philippe uses mysterious deep water fish and other organisms as inspiration for his synth explorations. This music is full of amazing sounds and ideas.
Let me take you through my journey of listening to this album:
We start off with “Underwater,” a short track that features the sounds of a submerging submarine where you can hear the inside machinery, the outside pressures on the hull, and maybe some of the external noises. “Photic Ill-uminescence” sounds like we’ve gone deeper but the radar has malfunctioned and distorted voices suggest confusion is spreading among the crew. We are feeling the pressure of the depth. As the music starts to stretch out with “Species That Feed Near the Bottom” we get lost in the relatively peaceful imagined sounds of various unknown creatures passing by our observational intrusion into their usually unseen world. Some sort of warning sound snaps us back to the reality of our situation as the longest track “Hypoxic Breathing” begins. But as the music continues, we travel through all manner of sounds for this long, interesting portion of the excursion. Internal and external noises are starting to blend together. Is our hypoxic breathing affecting out brain? Perhaps we are descending deeper into the ocean, or into madness. Finally we reach “Hadal Dive,” another longer track to close out our journey. Here, we seem to reach the point where our internal and external worlds are indistinguishable from each other. Various slower sounds (drones, buzzes, pulses, pitches) visit for a short time, stay for a bit, and are then subsumed as the lines between the sounds totally blur. Things seem to be getting a bit out of control in the latter part of the track, but we surrender totally; we are done, and we are at peace.
Of course, your experience with “Deep-sea Creatures” may vary from mine, but you will not be disappointed no matter where this amazing music leads you. It’s out now on MuteAnt Sounds.