Jurgen Muller - Science of the Sea

Vinyl pressing of this almost mythical album from
oceanographer and musician Jurgen Muller, originally
released in an edition of 100 copies in 1982.

The audio has been re-mastered by Brad Rose and cut to
vinyl at Dubplates and Mastering, Berlin.

Limited to 500 copies only.

Jürgen Müller, b. 1948 in Hamburg, Germany.


Jürgen Müller was a self-taught amateur musician who, while studying
oceanic science at the University of Kiel, purchased some electronic
instruments and set up a mobile studio on his house boat, docked
along the town of Heikendorf, on the North Sea. He held a life-long
fascination with the ocean, the expansive and endless inner-space of
the deep, where he felt many ecological miracles had yet to be
discovered, and which kindled a love for the unknown. This love of all
things nautical started early in his youth and eventually led him to study
the oceanic sciences.

For one week in 1979 Jürgen took up with a film crew on a mission to
document some sea-water toxicity testing that was being performed by
a couple of notable biologists, only a few kilometers off the shore. At
the end of the expedition he decided that he would make music to
capture the strange feeling conjured by these experiences.

Utilizing only a handful of barely-remembered childhood piano lessons,
Jürgen set about creating his marine-influenced vignettes with some
electronic instruments he had gathered through friends, as well as
borrowing some new equipment from a local school’s music
department. As a general music lover, earlier in the '70s he had taken
note of several avant garde electronic composers who he felt
simultaneously captured a purity of sound and sense of wonder that
was lacking in other music. He dreamt of fusing this ideal with the
synthetic recreations of nature. In a sense, one could say he stumbled
onto an early “new age” aesthetic through pure ignorance and
coincidence. Mixing relaxing ambient tones and spooky otherworldly
sounds, he came up with a unique approach.

After filling several reels of home recordings he held ambitions of
becoming a film composer. He decided to start his own publishing
company, Neue Wissenschaft, and hoped to compose albums in order
to sell as production music to various film companies for use in
documentaries and television programs. As he was simultaneously
hard at work on his studies to finish school, he had to work on his
music in short intervals, and often had to put it aside altogether. As a
result, it took several years for him to actually realize his sole full-length
recording, Science of the Sea, the sessions for which began in late
1981, before finishing a year later. Less than 100 copies were pressed,
and few of them were even sent out to potential clients. Most copies
were eventually given to friends and family.

Jürgen’s musical gamble
never quite paid off as he had hoped, and without any outside interest
or connections in the music world, he soon abandoned any dreams of a
musical existence and instead chose to further his oceanographic
career.

Remastered from the original tapes by Brad Rose. Cut to vinyl at D+M

Berlin and pressed in Germany.

Tracklisting:

A

Jenseits des Stromes (Beyond the Tide)
Meeresbett Meditation (Sea Bed Meditation)
Das Unfassbare Seepferdchen (The Elusive Seahorse)
Meergrün (Sea Green)
Wasserwelt (Waterworld)
Traumfolge einer Qualle (Dream Sequence for a
Jellyfish)

B

Meer Technik (Marine Technology)
Sauerstoff Blasen (Oxygen Bubbles)
Korallen Phantasie (Coral Fantasy)
Nach U-booten Jagen (Chasing Submarines)
Unter Weiten Welten (Vast Worlds Beneath)
Einsame Reise (Lonely Voyage)

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