A CLOSER LISTEN: **Top 10 Ambient album of 2022**. "distinctively and beautifully intense" - "The best short story collections offer a variety of subjects and approaches, joined by a common thread. Plankton and the Whale Shark enters the ears instead of the eyes, but produces the same effect."
UNCUT: 8/10 "Sublime. A richly textured suite of instrumentals"
TERRASCOPE: "a collection of soaring, and emotional drones and ambient pieces... the music easily conveying, the ebb and flow of the sea, it's tranquillity and darkness, the beauty tempered by a sense of danger and power."
FOLK RADIO: "a deeply immersive listening experience that you don’t want to end" - "mesmerising in its weird beauty; a strange, hypnotic soundscape that will magnetise and bewitch."
KOMEDA: "a rich genre experience, containing iconic pieces woven into categories such as ambient, jazz, modern classical, psychedelic rock, avant-garde and more..."
UNCLASSIFIED - BBC RADIO 3 "Translucent in production and mood"
THE LISTENING POST: "a mysterious and ethereal experience, and one that will intrigue and envelop"
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“Each track was created as an imaginary soundtrack,” says Neal Heppleston, of his latest album, Plankton and the Whale Shark. “I came up with a concept for each track and tried to envisage music to fit the feeling or the movement of the idea.”
The double bass player - and maker by trade - initially set out to make an ambient record but instead decided to expand it into what we hear now: a rich, detailed, textural and multifaceted record that spans multiple genres. “It really grew into something else,” he says, describing the end result as “atmospheric and cinematic with elements of minimal jazz, ambient, avant-garde, psychedelic rock and post-classical.”
The variety of tones and textures - sculpted by numerous instruments including flute, harp, double bass, piano, lap steel, harmonium, cello, clarinet, drums and violin - results in a record, despite being instrumental, that is rich in narrative. “The album is a series of stories related to the ocean,” Heppleston says. “I wanted to convey different emotions and stories about the ocean. There’s a great wonder about the vastness of it but there’s also a sadness - and it can be scary, chaotic and peaceful all at the same time.”
During many moments of the album, it feels like a sonic plunge into the ocean, capturing a submerged feeling that can veer between calm and quiet terror. Sometimes this feels subtle or metaphorical and at other times it captures something much more literally, as on the track ‘The Descent of the Diving Bell’, “which follows a Diving Bell from the surface, through the darkness and eventually reaching the bottom, whilst capturing the feeling of the person inside the Diving Bell.”
Other tracks take a simpler approach, says Heppleston. “For ‘Siphonophore’ I'd seen some footage of a Siphonophore - which looks like a string of bioluminescence, but is actually multiple organisms joined together - gliding through the dark ocean, and I wanted to capture the essence of that imagery. On ‘In Fathoms’ I was trying to capture the sadness of the ocean, whereas ‘Ghost Ship’ is about the imagined events leading to a ship becoming adrift with no crew.”
All of this links to the album title too. “I have always been fascinated by the ocean,” says Heppleston. “I found the concept of the largest fish on earth surviving off some of the smallest creatures an interesting idea.” The title track is the longest on the album, an engulfing 12 minute journey, that in many ways captures the essence of the whole approach to the record. “I wanted to create a piece of music that told the story of the plankton, unaware of a giant fish slowly getting closer,” he says. “The idea, as with the other tracks on the album, was to have specific instruments representing different things, in this case the harp was the plankton and the double bass was the whale shark. The title is then linked back to the final track ‘Ebisu’, who is the Japanese god of whale sharks.”
There are a huge variety of contributors on the album, such as Robert George Saull, Guy Whittaker (Big Eyes Family Players, Bobby Lee), Graham McElearney (Åyusp), David Broadhurst (Pet Rescue), James Mainwaring (Roller Trio) Thomas Méreur, Nick Jonah Davis, Jim Ghedi, Amelia Baker (Cinder Well), DBH (Irma Vep, Kiran Leonard), Aby Vulliamy (Orchestre Tout Pusissant Marcel Duchamp, Bill Wells), Aaron Martin (From the Mouth of the Sun), Sharron Kraus and Hayden Berry (Visionary Hours).
This rich pool of contributors helps add to the depth, breadth and scope of an album that is deeply immersive yet also expansive and that manages to capture the intricacies and details of the micro, as well as the awe-inspiring vastness of the macro. “I hope the music will take the listener on a journey into different worlds,” says Heppleston. “Some of it expansive, some of it claustrophobic. There is sadness to some of the music, but also a peacefulness, and in the case of ‘Salt Dog’ maybe a bit of sea sickness.”
credits
released November 25, 2022
1. Siphonophore
Neal Heppleston - Bass Guitar
Robert George Saull - Flute
Guy Whittaker - Drums
2. Plankton and the Whale Shark
Neal Heppleston - Bass Guitar, Double Bass
Robert George Saull - Electric Guitar
Graham McElearney - Harp
Guy Whittaker - Percussion
3. Ghost Ship
Neal Heppleston - Bass Guitar, Mellotron
Robert George Saull - Electric Guitar
David Broadhurst - Synths
James Mainwaring - Saxophone
Guy Whittaker - Drums, Percussion
4. In Fathoms
Neal Heppleston - Double Bass
Thomas Méreur - Piano
Nick Jonah Davis - Lap Steel Guitar
Jim Ghedi - Harmonium
Amelia Baker - Violin
5. Salt Dog
Neal Heppleston - Casiotone MT-40, Acoustic Guitar, Double Bass, Percussion
DBH - Violin
Guy Whittaker - Drums, Percussion
6. The Descent of the Diving Bell
Neal Heppleston - Double Bass
DBH - Violin
Aby Vulliamy - Viola
Aaron Martin - Cello
Written and Arranged by Neal Heppleston
Produced by Neal Heppleston and Steve Goodison
Mixed by Steve Goodison at The Church House, Sheffield
Mastered by Dean Honer at The Bowling Green, Sheffield
Artwork by Kathryn Desforges
Layout and design by Robert Lee
supported by 13 fans who also own “Plankton and the Whale Shark”
Beautiful British psych/folk, with dueling male/female vocals, a bit like Fairport Convention. A great record to play on these gray winter days. Levrikon
