Ocean Songs is a new kind of album. Described as ‘docu-pop’, it is a blend of science data, soundscapes and song, exploring human relationships with the ocean.
Following on from the creation of a sound installation on the Cutty Sark, Colin Riley developed this album. It was produced by Sonic Collaborations, a company that Colin co-directs, and which looks to make creative connections between music and other disciplines.
The album integrates spoken extracts from scientist/author Helen Czerski (reading from her award-winning book Blue Machine) and a spoken extract from George Monbiot about how whales contribute to the ecology of the ocean, helping to sink carbon. Commissioned by Royal Museums Greenwich, Ocean Songs has just been released on Squeaky Kate Records. It was launched in March 2026 at London’s only floating venue Theatreship and goes to Latitude Festival this summer.
Read on for Colin’s account of the creative process, which outlines the decision to be made when faced with writing, recording and rehearsing a whole album from scratch in less three months.
Listen to Ocean songs on Bandcamp here Find out more about Sonic Collaborations here
It’s a Monday afternoon at the end of March. I’m sat around a table underneath the massive underbelly of the Cutty Sark, Greenwich, with four wonderful musicians. I’m a stone’s throw away from the meridian line and the epicentre of British maritime history.
We’re discussing a new piece, Ocean Songs, to be performed on the brand new ocean floor map of the National Maritime Museum. Its first performance will be in just over three months, and we need to compose a whole album of songs, record it, and rehearse it for live performance. All around me there are excited ideas being tossed around and avenues opening up to be explored; underwater recording with hydrophones, ships’ bells, community choirs, scientific data to map to notes, lectures about the environment to sample, sounds of underwater creatures, and granular synthesis to morph sounds of shrimps. It’s fascinating. It’s very exciting. And rich in possibilities.
Left to right: Kate Dornan (project manager), Nic Pendlebury (electric viola), Colin Riley (keyboards/electronics) Steve Pretty (trumpet)
A sea of ideas
But as the woven voices bounce around me in this uber-resonant acoustic, all I can think of in this sea of ideas is that we have and incredibly short space of time to come up with the notes, formulate a coherent overall design, capture as many of the concepts as needed, and keep everyone creatively on board. (Pardon the pun). There had been talk of creating the music through a process of collaboration with me instigating musical responses and piecing things together. It’s something I’d done during the pandemic with an album called ‘Isolated Pieces’ and it seemed to work. But suddenly it seems very clear to me that there needs to be a cleaner and more streamlined approach. An innate sense of pragmatism from many years of working in testing circumstances shouts to me that I need to take creative control and act quickly, otherwise this project could flounder in a very messy way. There will be no room for dilly-dallying. No room for precious indulgent exploration.
Sonic Collaborations on the Cutty Sark. Left to right: Lottie P (vocals), Steve Pretty (trumpet), Nic Pendlebury (electric viola), Colin Riley (keyboards/electronic)
I spend the next ten days back home sketching out the nine songs that are to form the album. Delivering these one at a time to the team won’t work. People need to see an overall vision and the songs need to exist collectively to form an arc. So I forge the basic material of each song in turn, moving quickly from one to the next. None are developed very far and most of the songs are rapid extemporisations to capture a mood and a musical style built from sounds I have to hand. A few are adaptations from my stockpile of ideas lurking in Logic folders and in notebooks. I travel back to London and present the complete album to Nic (co-director of the project). I think he’s shocked and impressed in equal measure. For me this is a huge relief, but it’s only stage one of the journey.
It feels as if I’m using the full range of my skills as a composer on this. On one level I’m managing the expectations and skill-sets of the team (given that time is slipping away fast), but I’m also creating work that draws together the many areas of work that I’ve previously explored. My experience as a song-writer is at the fore, creating demos for our singer Lottie. I’m simultaneously imagining how instruments might get processed, and how this might all come together live. I’m juggling the arrangements in terms of parts that are notated and parts that will allow for improvised elements later. An important strand of the music is the inclusion of a community choir. I need to keep an eye on this. The schedule tells me that the three songs that include the choir need to be finished first so that scores, realisations and explanations can all go to the choirs so that they can begin rehearsing as soon as possible. These songs have a six week turnaround!
So the weeks pass by
So the weeks pass by. I exchange ideas with Lottie (our singer). I send her the framework of the songs and she sends recordings back. Sometimes it a free form approach with her writing lyrics and singing a melody. Sometimes I have some fragments of lyrics and melodies. Sometime I present a finished song of melody and lyrics. All is open to adaptation, and the main purpose of this part of the process is for Lottie to get invested in the material and to inhabit the world being created. She is the singer, and as such this strand carries much of the essence and personality of each song. This is a gradual process ebbing and flowing between us, and it can’t be rushed. I’m keen that there is no sense of anxiety, or pressure from me. We adopt the same approach for her guitar parts too.
Simultaneous to this I’m soliciting ideas from Steve (trumpet) and Nic (electric viola) by drip-feeding frameworks to them also. With Steve, there are huge delays and four weeks before the first performance I really only have a response to one song. With Nic he is less fluent with extemporising and a realise that to get this across the line I must compose all the notes. Both of them have very heavy commitments elsewhere and I remain as patient as I can.
Left to right: Lottie P (vocals), Nic Pendlebury (electric viola), Colin Riley (keyboards/electronics) in rehearsal
The first rehearsal is on Wednesday 18th June. For this I create scores and parts for every player, formulate my own keyboard sounds, plus a backing track and click tracks. With a flurry of audio files coming back from Steve and me tweaking the album mix, the week leading up to this is hectic.
The first single: We Are Ocean
Premier
We premiere some of the songs on Lowestoft beach at dawn (4.30am to be exact) as part of the First Light festival in Lowestoft. The beach is where the first rays of sun first hit the British Isles. My music is blowing around, sand is blowing into the keyboard, and I can hardly see a thing because it’s so dark! Another band do some folksongs, and there’s some kind of dawn-yoga facing out towards the sea. And then, emerging out of the gloom, we start our set of three songs beginning slowly with an evocation of dawn; electronically-processed conch shell, slow held synth chords, and wailing viola.
Lowestoft beach 4.30am (June 2025) © Adam Barnes
There’s some kind of breakfast for the gathered crowds (which we miss because we’re playing). The sun comes up. The day gets very hot. The crowds arrive. We shift all our equipment to the main stage; the ‘Sunlight Stage’. A local community choir joins us, and we perform the whole album for the first time. The First Light Festival is a magnificent event, and all free. There’s a wonderful crowd.
The ‘Sunlight’ stage, First Light Festival (June 2025) © Adam Barnes
Live at the Maritime Museum
A few weeks later we play at the National Maritime Museum, (back where the ideas all began) on the hottest day of the year. Another great concert, and a huge sense of relief that it’s all worked out.
At the Maritime Museum, 2025 © Adam Barnes
With a small hiatus and after the physical CD is manufactured Ocean Songs is officially launched aboard Theatreship London.
Taking time – and what’s next
Some things I create take years to be completed. Some are done in an adrenaline rush of pressure. Ocean Songs is complete, and it’s taken a lot out of me.
I can now get back to the piece that had been on my mind for the last three years. This one is a slow-burner! A piece celebrating the song of the blackbird (incorporating AI) for string quartet called Broken Line. As they say, ‘and now for something completely different’.
Listen to Ocean Songs
Ocean Songs is available on Squeaky Kate Records and will be touring the UK in a live format with visuals throughout 2027.
You can listen to the album on Bandcamp Here.
Find Colin Riley’s profile here.