The mention of Jamaica in the tourist imagination often conjures images of beaches with white sand bordering a sparkling blue ocean. Yet this beach also housed two forms of liberatory working-class culture: the secular reggae sound system and the sacred Rasta gathering. This paper investigates the intersection of roots reggae lyrics, Rastafarianism’s postcolonial critique, and Van Rensselaer Potter’s Global Bioethics through lyrics about the coast. It shows that bioethical thought is not restricted to Western-defined fields of science, medicine, and philosophy, and that historical experience, social analysis, political action, and spiritual yearning can yield insight. The paper also shows that the repositories and purveyors of this thought can be found in the arts. Potter imagined bioethics as a bridge between science and social science, wisdom and knowledge. Rasta also acts as a bridge, from experience and history to utopia. In its concern for the quality of all life, its emphasis on a holistic approach that considers the dignity of life, the sustainability and ethics of economic practices, and human connections to the natural world, Rasta is an interesting point of comparison to the holistic bioethical system envisioned by Van Rensselaer Potter in his Global Bioethics.

Biosphere’s Substrata (1997). William Basinski’s Watermusic (2000). Tim Hecker’s score for The North Water (2021). Tomer Baruch’s Synthesized Sounds of the Sea (2022). Drawing Water On Matching Teal Surfaces by Abul Mogard & KMRU (2023). These are just a few of the examples of electronic music compositions that meditate on water, representing an increased attention to climate change through sound. How can electronic music change the way we think about water in our everyday lives? Drawing on interviews with electronic music listeners and composers, as well as ethnographic experiences at electronic music events and artistic installations, this presentation explores how composer-performers facilitate opportunities for listeners to change or challenge their perception of water, and their interaction with it. I consider how ambient and experimental pieces foster an altered awareness and interpretation of topics ranging from water scarcity to water pollution, from oceanic biodiversity to global warming. Through a deep dive into listener experiences of representative examples, I argue that the medium of electronic music offers unique possibilities for environmental storytelling with the potential for transformative impact. Drawing on Ben Green’s theory of peak music experience (2022), Dacher Keltner’s inquiry into the power of awe (2023), and Pauline Oliveros’ practice of deep listening (1971), I frame these compositions as having the ability to produce affective shifts by transporting listeners through fluid soundscapes. This paper argues that immersive sonic environments can generate ecological empathy and action by teaching us how to listen deeply to water.

The Sound Frequency and Ranging (SOFAR) channel is a quirk of nature, serving as a synecdochic conduit for the ocean’s aural architecture since its discovery by military scientists in the 1940s. Most people were probably unaware of its existence before the implosion of the OceanGate Titan submersible. Nevertheless, listening to SOFAR has been consequential in immanentizing the ocean as a place that humans can aurally experience in its totality. This contributes to a sense of oceanic intimacy that has justified various techniques of destructive aural extraction (see Ochoa (2024) and Steingo (2024), for example). I contend that SOFAR resists this sensibility by bifurcating the ocean into two realms: a sensible ocean above with which humans can engage, and a compressing ocean below which is constantly trying to obliterate the terrestrial pockets humans must construct to survive the depths. This idea builds from an intriguing conceptual resonance between the SOFAR channel and another, older myth: Okeanos, the pre-Socratic “ocean” which served as a barrier dividing the sensible and habitable world from the underworld and the cosmos. Below the cusp of SOFAR, the ocean’s Okeanos, lies the obliterative impulse of the deep ocean defined by what I call “terrible intimacy.” Signified by the sonic traces of the dead (i.e. a submarine implosion), terrible intimacy makes us contend with some difficult but important ethical questions regarding any attempts to cultivate or remix the potent sonic artifacts it creates.