Aarktica. In Sea.

In Sea is Jon DeRosa’s sixth-full length release as Aarktica & a return to the sound Aarktica has been famous for since its debut No Solace In Sleep in 2000. The story of NSIS is mythic. In the winter of 1999, after learning of his permanent & near-total hearing loss in his right ear caused by nerve damage, DeRosa struggled through auditory hallucinations & an addiction to painkillers to recreate sound as he suddenly began to hear it, akin to being underwater or “in sea.” Disoriented by the cacophony of New York City & selfconscious about his deafness, DeRosa withdrew & began writing the songs that would become NSIS. These were sparse guitar compositions recorded quietly in an NYU dorm room on a dying warbly 4-track recorder. While some were as serene as an ice floe passing in the blackest night, others sounded as turbulent & terrifying as a drowning. What followed was the Morning One EP on Ochre Records in 2001 & then several years of releases where DeRosa veered away from his modern ambient/drone guitar orchestrations & towards atmospheric-pop & shoegaze with a number of guest musicians adding strings, horns, & vocals on top of his guitar work. While beautiful & unique, these albums are filled with pensive, paranoid, & often disjointed work that mirrored his frenetic mind during these turbulent & drug-addled points in his life. While In Sea’s title is a nod to Terry Riley’s landmark minimal composition “In C,” DeRosa also pays tribute to his teachers La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela (“LYMZ”), with whom DeRosa studied composition & Indian classical vocal music during the difficult years following his sudden deafness. He credits Young & Zazeela with teaching him how to hear without ears, relying on the physical vibrations of his instrument & his vocal chords. This ability allows him to create more detailed & nuanced guitar structures than most could make even with full use of their ears. Released on Silber.