John Luther Adams - Become Ocean, or becoming-ocean

John Luther Adams’s music is inspired by nature, especially that of Alaska. He does not try to represent nature through music, but rather creates an immersive listening experience that evokes the same feelings as nature. Become Ocean is a gradually building, minimalistic orchestral piece, 42 minutes in length, reminiscent of the minimalism of Glass and Reich, but much quieter. Reminiscent of a landscape painting, I would call it a waterscape sonification. It is dark, brooding and ultimately unsettling. It flows like oceanic waves, but also like tidal waves, fading out and coming back again. Ultimately, it is not about the ocean, but about becoming-ocean in a Deleuzian way, about the human in the Anthropocene and how we depend on the very nature we destroy.

Become Ocean fades in slowly with a low rumbling noise, Wagner’s Rheingold without the uplifting brass melodies. The instruments of the orchestra join in, one by one, the piano, strings, woodwinds, brass instruments, percussion. At first, they play their own thing. This is Cage’s “Eight” all over again, tones that coexist in a common landscape – or seascape, for that matter. Gradually, they ‘become ocean.’ Some play a small melody while others hold an accompanying base note. There are small bubbles coming from below the surface, but also deep insights into the endless abyss. After about seven minutes, all instruments create a crescendo that falls apart like a breaking wave. Only to start from nothing again. After the last collapse, all that remains is deafening silence.

While Become Ocean recreates the beauty and vastness of and endless body of water, there is also a constant feeling of threat, uneasiness, and inevitability. After the wave breaks for the first time, one knows that it will happen again, until it will happen no more. It is not easy to listen to, but at the same time demands to be listened to again and again. It might well be a prediction of the last sounds heard on Earth, long after humanity is gone.