THE OCEAN’s dramatic Pelagial DVD, which is being screened as live video projections during the band’s current Pelagial world tour, is a conceptual movie by Craig Murray, known for his work with NINE INCH NAILS. This movie, which offers up a year’s worth of meticulous shooting, cutting and editing, visualizes the journey into the depths and completes the holistic music and visual art project that defines the Pelagial concept. An excerpt can be viewed below.
The film is inundated with spectacular oceanic footage, parts of which THE OCEAN’s own Robin Staps, an avid scuba diver, filmed himself in Australia. In addition, Pelagial features a female protagonist (who ironically goes by the name Arielle in real life). The girl is seen enduring various stages of fear, lust, terror, pain and joy, as she sinks towards the inscrutable depths of the Hadopelagic zone at the end of the album, and metaphorically, deeper and deeper into the depths of her own psyche.
Comments Staps: “The album concept follows two separate but related strains: One is the obvious journey from the surface towards the depths of the sea, crossing the five Pelagial depth zones. The second one is loosely based on Andrey Tarkowsky’s movie Stalker, which is also a journey through zones, but an inward journey, form the surface into the depths of the human psyche, towards the origins of our wishes and desires. This is the central theme that the lyrics of the album are orbiting around. The Pelagial movie takes up themes from and makes reference to both of these conceptual strains, and fuzes them together, in an abstract, artistic way.”
The Pelagial DVD comes with a 5:1 Dolby surround mix of the instrumental album and is currently only available along with the special limited edition acrylic box set versions of the album, which were released through the band’s own Pelagic Records, on both CD and 4×10″ vinyl formats, in April. These special acrylic boxes contained the CD digipak or the two vinyl gatefolds respectively; which were “buried” underneath five thick, silk-screen printed acrylic layers colored in different hues of transparent blue, again reflecting the individual pelagic depth zones. The vinyl box sets sold out within nine days in February 2013, by direct pre-order only. A second edition, including a repress of the vinyl on three-color split wax, will be made available for pre-order shortly, and released in December through Pelagic Records. The CD box sets are still available at this location.
THE OCEAN’s Pelagial full-length was released earlier this year via Metal Blade. Their most profound work to date, Pelagial is a 53-minute exploratory composition written, recorded, mixed and intended to-be-performed-live as one single piece of music. Centered around all five pelagic depth zones, Pelagial purposefully submerges its listeners into an aquatic journey that is at once tranquil and terrifying. Pelagial entered the Billboard Heatseekers Chart at #10 upon its first week of release. The Ocean is currently in the last stages of a three-month world tour promoting Pelagial, which included North America, Taiwan, China, and currently Russia.