Journalist Ian Urbina created The Outlaw Ocean LLC to run The Outlaw Ocean Music Project, a music venture built around his reporting and his book The Outlaw Ocean. The project uses music to share journalism; participating artists have incorporated field recordings and excerpts from Urbina’s reporting into their work. Its reach goes beyond electronic music to classical and hip-hop, while its drum and bass side leans atmospheric, deep and liquid.
The label’s releases include work by Zero T, Nuage, Nelver and Muffler. In 2020, Ian Urbina and Muffler made The Frontier Beyond, a single inspired by the book. That year also brought Below Fifty Degrees South, an EP by Fouk that drew on sounds from Urbina’s journalistic archive. Zero T and Urbina followed in 2021 with Universal Mechanism, part of the Noam Chomsky Music Project.
Rick Wade and Urbina’s album Outlaw Deep appeared in 2021, while Phil Thornton’s Secrets From the Lawless Ocean arrived in 2022. The 2023 release Vigilante Injustice paired 3kStatic with Urbina. Synesthesia Media LLC, created by Urbina, handled registration of the project’s music with music platforms. Bad Tuner’s contribution “Adelaide’s Voyage” used ship sounds and audio from an interview with an Indonesian woman. Shook made “The Void” for the project, drawing inspiration from The Outlaw Ocean. In 2020, Nalestar and Urbina released Outlaw, a single credited to The Outlaw Ocean LLC.
