The Ocean

The Ocean Collective (usually referred to as “The Ocean”) is an experimental rock band from Berlin, Germany. Their work combines elements of modern hardcore and technical metal with classical music and electronic soundscapes. The band often describes its sound as “ambient soundtrack doomrock”.

The Ocean was founded in 2000 by guitarist and songwriter Robin Staps. During the following two years, about 40 musicians joined and left the band until a stable line-up was established. July 2002 saw The Ocean play their first concert at Berlin’s now defunct semi-legal Eimer Club. Shortly after, the band released their eponymous debut album featuring “Islands/Tides,” a 30-minute-long song that also constituted the substance of their early live shows.

After a brief tour with Swedish crust punk outfit Coma in early 2003, the band signed to Make My Day Records, which then released “Fogdiver,” an EP consisting of five instrumental songs—despite the fact that on stage, at least two singers could be found. Unlike its predecessor, this recording received considerable acclaim from critics throughout a variety of genres.

During winter and spring 2004, The Ocean recorded what was to become the material for their two following albums. The calmer and more atmospheric half of this recording session was released as “Fluxion” in August 2004; a joint effort of Make My Day and Throne Records. While the fact that the band now used vocals on their recordings seemed to make the music more accessible to some, it also caused many other critics to consider the album a step backwards in terms of innovation and originality. In interviews, the band would comment on this by pointing out the close-mindedness of some of the reviewers and their supposed inability to deal with the harshness and brutality the vocals now added to The Ocean’s sound.

After signing to Metal Blade Records in summer 2005, all the remaining songs from the session were released as “Aeolian”. Since “Fluxion” and “Aeolian” had originally been planned as a double CD with a mellow and a brutal part—a plan that did not work out—, “Aeolian” came across as very different from its predecessor. Unlike on previous albums, classical instruments and electronic sounds were hardly used here, making the record sound rather minimalistic. But whereas “Fluxion” had featured only one singer, seven of them could be found on “Aeolian,” among them Nate Newton, Sean Ingram, and Tomas Hallbom, whose names were also used extensively for the album’s promotion campaign. According to the band, Meta’s voice on “Fluxion” had created a monotony that was to be avoided on “Aeolian.” March 2006 saw the North American release of the album. Later that year, a joint vinyl version of “Fluxion” and “Aeolian” was released by Throne Records, featuring three records in different colors.

The double-disc album “Precambrian” was released in 2007. ‘Precambrian’ is composed of a mini-CD with 22 minutes playing time entitled “Hadean/Archaean”, and a full-length CD with 62 minutes playing time, entitled “Proterozoic”, both referring to successive geological eons within the Precambrian. The songs are divided into 5 subordinate eras, with the song-titles carrying the names of subordinate geological periods.