Music

The Ocean’s Robin Staps Posts Video Comments For Each ‘Heliocentric’ Song

Published

14 years ago

April 14, 2010

To celebrate the album’s release, The Ocean’s Robin Staps has filmed short video clips that describe in detail the lyrical and musical concepts behind each song on Heliocentric. Those clips are live now on The Ocean and Metal Blade YouTube channels, as well as on metalblade.tv.

Read on for the video links!

Heliocentric track listing and song comment videos by Robin Staps (click the song title for the video):

1. Shamayim (instrumental)

2. Firmament

3. The First Commandment of the Luminaries

4. Ptolemy Was Wrong

5. Metaphysics of the Hangman

6. Catharsis of a Heretic

7. Swallowed by the Earth

8. Epiphany

9. The Origin of Species

10. The Origin of God

All of the videos can be seen on MetalBlade.tv.

Heliocentric can be previewed via 30 second instrumental clips, available now on theoceancollective.com/heliocentric.

The songs, art and lyrics of Heliocentric tell the story of the rise of the heliocentric world view – the idea that the earth revolves around the sun, and that the sun is stationary and at the center of the universe. Copernicus and Gallilei were the first popular ambassadors of this idea, although ancient greek astronomers like Aristarchus had already posited this theory centuries before.

The effects that this discovery had on Christian belief and occidental culture are at the base of The Ocean’s “Heliocentric” album. Throughout the course of the album, the lyrics are orbiting around an astronomic and a philosophical/religious subject, whilst always keeping an essentially personal perspective.

Fans can now order Heliocentric as just the CD or in a CD/t-shirt package. Go HERE for details and prices. The packaging for Heliocentric is quite amazing, featuring a black digipak with silver foil and black embossed designs as well as tarot cards in place of the traditional CD booklet. There are a total of 9 tarot cards, each with its own artwork on one side and lyrics on the opposite side. A special vinyl box 2x LP edition with revolving sun and planet-dials will be available soon from pelagic-records.com.

Heliocentric has won the ‘soundcheck’ of Metal Hammer magazine and was awarded ‘album of the month’ by all editors.

To celebrate this, The Ocean had teamed up with Metal Hammer and Friction Fest for yet another special event. Robin Staps adds: “We will play a showcase gig at the famous White Trash in Berlin on Thursday, April 29th, premiering the Heliocentric material live in Germany. I will DJ for an hour or so after the gig and we will all be hanging out at White Trash, so come say hi and have a drink!”

This event will double as a warm-up gig for Friction Fest the following weekend, where The Ocean will perform a special set with an extended lineup including various classical musicians (May 7th).

JonathanBarkan

Managing editor/music guy/social media fella of Bloody-Disgusting

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Music

“He Walks By Night” – Listen to a Brand New John Carpenter Song NOW!

Published

2 weeks ago

April 9, 2024

John Squires

It’s a new day, and you’ve got new John Carpenter to listen to. John Carpenter, Daniel Davies and Cody Carpenter have released the new track He Walks By Night this morning, the second single off their upcoming album Lost Themes IV: Noir, out May 3 on Sacred Bones Records.

Lost Themes IV: Noir is the latest installment in a series that sees Carpenter releasing new music for John Carpenter movies that don’t actually exist. The first Lost Themes was released in 2015, followed by Lost Themes II in 2016 and Lost Themes III: Alive After Death in 2021.

Sacred Bones previews, “It’s been a decade since John Carpenter recorded the material that would become Lost Themes, his debut album of non-film music and the opening salvo in one of Hollywood’s great second acts. Those vibrant, synth-driven songs, made in collaboration with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, kickstarted a musical renaissance for the pioneering composer and director. With Lost Themes IV: Noir, they’ve struck gold again, this time mining the rich history of the film noir genre for inspiration.

“Since the first Lost Themes, John has referred to these compositions as “soundtracks for the movies in your mind.” On the fourth installment in the series, those movies are noirs. Like the film genre they were influenced by, what makes these songs “noirish” is sometimes slippery and hard to define, and not merely reducible to a collection of tropes. The scores for the great American noir pictures were largely orchestral, while the Carpenters and Davies work off a sturdy synth-and-guitar backbone.

“The trio’s free-flowing chemistry means Lost Themes IV: Noir runs like a well-oiled machine—the 1951 Jaguar XK120 Roadster from Kiss Me Deadly, perhaps, or the 1958 Plymouth Fury from John’s own Christine. It’s a chemistry that’s helped power one of the most productive stretches of John’s creative life, and Noir proves that it’s nowhere near done yielding brilliant results.”

You can pre-save Lost Themes IV: Noir right now! And listen to the new track below…