How It Was Made: Oceanvs Orientalis – Ex Nihilo [Kanto Records]

Music production, and the process of creating in general, is a labor of love that varies in complexity depending on the creator. Many times, small details can often go unnoticed. Or, at least at first to those unaware of what they are hearing. But, it's actually these small details that separate the artist's music from the rest. One such artist is Oceanvs Orientalis, whose latest work, Ex Nihilio, is the culmination of a year's worth of field recordings and experimental synthesis. We were intrigued by his process and invited him to break it down for us for the latest edition of How It Was Made. 

Words and photos by Oceanvs Orientalis

For the Ex Nihilo album, first I started to study the history of the universe as much as I can. After that, I picked out 10 significant events that effected the Universe and Earth the most.

I wrote down a story for each event, stories mostly based on real events, but I tried to blend them with sci-fi stories. With that, I finally had my own semi-real Universal history. I used those stories as a script and road map for my album.

For drums, to get a unique sound I used almost everything that I could find at home; for the kicks, I used big boxes and big soft mallets. This gave me a natural fat and interesting kick drum kind of essence.

I record lots of material at my kitchen such as using ice blocks for giving ice age like sound effects. I also create lots of machine, wood and metal sounds in my workshop for some special effects like asteroids, crashing sound effects and swoosh effects.

I support all those weird unusual sounds with lots of digital effects, like Waves H Delay and Fabfilter Pro-R reverb. Also, to give a sharper feeling to drums, I record most of the hi-hats with my little hi-hat set as well as other little percussions. One of my favorite drum machines, especially for this album to support recorded sounds was DSI Tempest.

This was the first time I’ve used this beautiful kit from KOMA Elektronik Field Kit. It’s an amazing little noisy kit with an analog little reverb, Fm/Am receiver and 4 channel mixer. I used this a lot to record some weird Am radio signals and also create some strange soundscapes.

To make most of the baselines I used Mutable Instrument Rings. I’m always surprised by the variety of sounds of this little module has with just a few knobs.

Ex Nihilio by Oceanvs Orientalis is available now via Kanto Records. Grab it here.