Realistic relaxation album features sounds of ocean heating up, dolphins choking

VILLE ÉMARD, QC—From his studio, Paul-Andre Remi mixes Wheezing Seas, the first relaxation album featuring real sounds from today's oceans, like a chorus of Powerade bottles washing ashore, oil spilling from a ruptured tanker into a critically threatened lagoon, and seagulls with emphysema.

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"We strived for authenticity on Wheezing Seas. Listen to that whimsical sizzle. That's the sound of the Gulf of Mexico swallowing a lowland fishing village," Remi explains, adjusting a soundboard knob that raises the volume of rising sea levels. "Sad, for sure," Remi says before a big splash is heard, "but baby, the treble on that coastal erosion!"

Some say it's morbid to sleep while we listen to our planet rapidly deteriorating.- Paul-Andre Remi

Remi insists every sound on Wheezing Seas is natural. There are no instruments on the recording. "You might think that's a hypnotic xylophone rhythm you're hearing around minute 27, but it's really bleached coral breaking away and colliding with the shells of sea turtles that were trapped in gill nets. Say what you will about the tragic nature of a 150-year-old beast meeting a human-caused demise; it's great percussion. And we were able to jump right into the water with our audio equipment without fear to record it, because thanks to long-line fishing, 90% of the sharks are dead."

But you don't get an effective relaxation album without a bit of luck. "We were in the Pacific, next to a floating trash vortex the size of Spain, when we managed to record the sound of a pelican blinded by mercury poisoning, thrashing off different pieces of garbage; a wing off a margarine tub here, a beak against a VCR there. It was like this soothing minuet that crescendo-ed into a final sleepy gurgle before the pelican sank to the ocean floor, only to pass along the toxins in its flesh to the bottom-feeders that will devour it," an animated Remi recounts with a bewildered headshake. "We were fortunate to get that."

Then Remi plays his favorite sequence from Wheezing Seas. "Shhh – hear that? When a dolphin's blowhole is clogged with plastic bags, it creates a sort of diaphragm. The resulting choking sound mimics that of a Theremin – one of the most sonically calming forms of asphyxiation in nature, second only to probably a walrus with a spork up its nose," which Remi reveals is also featured on the album.

Half the proceeds from Wheezing Seas (available Tuesday) will go to the futile, never-ending shit-show that is the fight for ocean preservation.

Still, the album has its detractors. "Some say it's morbid to sleep while we listen to our planet rapidly deteriorating," Remi admits, "but the truth is we've already been doing that for years."

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