Our Oceans: A String Of Happy Coincidences

The field of progressive music is becoming filled with more new and exciting bands with every passing moment. All with their own fearless and refreshing approach to songwriting that has really spoiled fans of the genre this year. 2020 saw the return of OUR OCEANS with their sophomore effort While Time Disappears. A venture which saw the talented trio push their sound further than ever before.

“The first album was very much an ethereal, dreamy kind of effort which was nice for one album but going forward we wanted to aim for a broader sound,” explains frontman and guitarist Tymon Kruidenier. “This time round we wanted to make sure we didn’t limit ourselves so it has some heavier stuff, some more energetic stuff but also some hypnotic, almost dancy stuff. It’s a bit all over the place while still trying to be cohesive. When I started this band I wasn’t singing or writing lyrics so I found out through trial and error that I like to write about very personal kind of things, like life experiences. I guess a lot of singers do, not because I want to talk about myself but its the easiest way to get in touch with what you’re saying because its closest to you. This album is kind of the last four or five years of my life, some big ups and downs are reflected in there but not just in a melancholic way. There are some angry elements too. It was fun to do but I don’t like to dig too much into the details because I don’t think that’s of much interest to anyone but me. I prefer for people to discover their own meaning so that it’ll resonate with their own stories instead of mine.”

On their debut release Tymon was not the intended choice of vocalist and it was more a role which he found himself slotting into. In the initial stages Tymon was still building his confidence but as is evident on this new release that he has really poured his soul into this endeavour and has really hit his stride. “When I started doing it I was really not ready to do it but I wanted to anyway. There was not a lot of confidence in me back then,” he admits.

“I’ve studied so much over the last couple of years but that is natural as you progress with something when you put time and effort into it. I had a very specific technique that was bothering me which I realised when I started recording this album. I felt like I was kind of running into a wall and just kind of tiring my voice out. At this point I realised I needed to just get my bearings and look into how I could tackle this issue. I took lessons from different vocal coaches and finally found a guy who could help me with this specific thing and all of a sudden things started to click and I recorded the vocals for this album very quickly. They were mostly done in one block of about three hours in the studio so my confidence has grown significantly. I understand there is a lot more work for me to do but that’s always the case. You’re never done learning!”

Tymon is quite the perfectionist and this cascades throughout every element of OUR OCEANS. This also included his search for the perfect artwork. “Before we started working on the songs I had a rough idea of what I wanted the artwork to look like and the colour scheme with the dark, warm colours and the kind of stylistic approach I was looking for,” explains Tymon. “This style really resonates with me but it was hard to find someone who could do that and who works in this style. I was searching through online platforms and there are tonnes and tonnes of artists to choose from. It took me weeks to find someone but when I finally did things were super easy from there. We intentionally didn’t give the artist too much direction but he loved the music and it inspired him to create four pieces for us so we have plenty of material to make t-shirts and posters from in the future which is really cool.”

After closing the book on his previous project EXIVIOUS the future was still uncertain for Tymon. As time has progressed he has discovered that OUR OCEANS is a bigger part of his musical journey than he initially anticipated. “The first album for OUR OCEANS was really just meant to be a one off, side project type thing with a female vocalist and the whole project wasn’t planned,” Tymon says. “I had some rough ideas laying around and thought it was a good opportunity to finally put them to use. I just kind of found out that, that style of music is much more enjoyable to make and then the whole singing thing just happened on top of that. Things didn’t work out so that lead me to giving it a try and kind of discovering how much I like singing and writing lyrics. It was kind of just happy coincidences in a row.”

While Time Disappears is out now via Long Branch Records.

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