Aftertide by Reefline

# AFTERTIDE

We recorded this one through a heatwave, watching the bleaching reports roll in from the Great Barrier. Three months straight inside a converted boathouse with hydrophones, tape machines, and a mess of spring reverbs we'd salvaged from old guitar amps.

The Sheath—that curved reef arch we've always drawn inspiration from—faced its worst summer yet. We'd spend mornings checking ocean temperature maps, evenings running field recordings through warped tape loops, trying to find that tension point where beauty meets threat.

*Aftertide* moves deeper than our previous work, diving into the reef's nocturnal pulse where survival and dreams blur. The dub is heavier here—we pushed the sub-bass until it physically rattled the mixing desk, wanted that pressure you feel swimming too deep. Every crab click and bubble hiss was recorded live, every melodica line run through delays until it felt like it might disappear completely.

The album traces a single night cycle: from "First Surge" introducing the gentle awakening to "Spawning Tide" where everything breaks open in a bloom of sound. When we finally nailed that transition from "Bleachwind Advance" (our darkest track) into the spawning's release, we knew we'd captured something true about living under pressure—not just for coral, but for all of us.

We've layered this one deeper than before. The heavy weight of dub technique meets the patience of ambient space, but there's something more restless pushing underneath. This is music for drift and anxiety and hope all at once.

When we test-played "Polyp Lanterns" at a small oceanside gathering last month, someone came up afterward saying they'd felt submerged—caught between fear and wonder. That's the zone we wanted to find.

Listen with good headphones, or a system that can handle the low end. Let the slow bloom pull you under.

We paint underwater maps with bass that sinks as deep as the Mariana Trench. Our sonic textures—rippling delay, filtered slow motion, hydrophone-captured reef chatter—tell stories of living coral worlds no human eyes truly see.