It’s been a minute since I wrote any background about what Young Oceans is all about so I thought I’d share my elevator pitch about the project for some of the new folks that are finding the music…
My name is Eric. I write and sing songs for this thing called Young Oceans. Young Oceans makes prayer music. The two rules of this project have always been that I won’t sing anything I don’t truly believe and we won’t make music we wouldn’t want to lay on the floor and listen to ourselves.
So you’re cordially invited into our little world. It’s a world of intense honesty, of real pursuit of God and desire to tap into the conversation outside our current dimension… Or something like that. This is not a theology project. We’re not trying to align ourselves with any one Christian tradition. I love the sacramental traditions as well as the charismatic and many styles in between. All I truly know is my own way of connecting with the Lord and I just feel like I’m supposed to share that experience. I hope the lyrics and sounds speak more than I could explain here.
Most of the songs are written specifically to sing in a church gathering. Others are purely for personal devotion and meditation. But the delight of recording them is to stretch them out, tear them up and sew them back in some strange new way. I’m privileged to work with incredible musicians and artists on all these songs… these folks don’t get enough credit. The ‘sound’ of Young Oceans is as much theirs as it is mine.
Peace to you all. I hope this music can offer a bit of healing in your life.
Eric Marshall
PS: Below, you can read a (mostly comprehensive) history of our releases…
"Young Oceans push the furthest edges of the indie meditative genre with densely layered Eno-atmospherics of equal appeal to the devoted believer, meditative transcendentalist, and discerning artrock fan." (Noisetrade). Initially, a studio-only project of songwriter Eric Marshall, the band’s SELF-TITLED debut was named Top 10 album of the year for 2012 by RELEVANT Magazine and spawned the companion instrumental collection BEFORE THE BEGINNING and a follow-up EP title ADVENT.
The second full-length effort, I MUST FIND YOU (2014), proved a more complete realization of the sound vision, “a complete mastery of space....the ship that “Achtung Baby” and “Raising Sand” built finds a shimmering harbor in Young Oceans" (Kevin Ott). Companion instrumental album STEADY THE STARS followed in 2015.
VOICES, a collaborative album revisiting songs across the band’s catalog and featuring a number of notable outside vocalists (Harvest, Leeland, Evan Wickham, Ellie Holcomb, All Sons & Daughters, Sarah Macintosh, and Mike Donehey of Tenth Avenue North) proved an interim collection ahead of the 3rd studio album.
SUDDENLY (Or The Nuclear Sunburst of The Truth Revealed) released in October 2017 and saw the band’s first-ever tour with a handful of club and universities gigs in North America in late 2017 and early 2018. Enjoying the live setting, the band recorded the wholly live film and album AMONG THE RUINS as a representation of the Young Oceans live experience. After previewing two of those tracks in Fall 2018 the band released the new SONGS OF CHRISTMAS album in November 2018 as a holiday interlude ahead of the ‘Ruins" release in Spring 2019.
Young Oceans’ fourth studio album YOU ARE FULLNESS (released Jan 2021) is the most intimate collection of prayer songs to date. Forced into an unconventional workflow during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, the soundscape that emerged is more terse, more immediate, more vocal-focused and perhaps more honest than any previous work.
SUBJECTS IN MOTION, the project’s second collaborative album featured artists such a Josh Garrels, Amanda Cook, Molly Parden, John Mark Pantana many others and was released in 2022. The album was deftly and delicately produced and steered by Brooklyn producer/singer-songwriter Jon Seale (aka Son of Cloud). An instrumental version of this record followed later.
2024 saw Eric trying on some new hats as producer and programmer on Young Ocean’s most experimental full length yet, entitled SOMEHOW I KNOW IT’S LOVE. Eric’s familiar prayer melodies and poetry float upon the terse and wild stylings of NYC pop producer, multi-instrumentalist and mixer Kerim Wilhelm. The result was something weird and new and perhaps even more intimate than previous efforts.