Spawning Tide from Aftertide by Reefline

# About this track: Spawning Tide

Recorded during a full moon—the same night we received news of a mass spawning event off Heron Island. The control room windows were flung open, letting in salt air while Mika worked the mixing desk, riding the faders as the coral's own rhythm dictated our tempo.

The bass frequencies here actually shattered a water glass during playback. We kept pushing that threshold where pressure becomes physical, where you feel the spawning surge in your chest rather than just hear it. The melodica parts were run through three consecutive tape delays, each one slightly warped from humidity damage—happy accidents we embraced.

This track holds the album's climactic moment, where all that tension we've been building finally releases in a cloud of sonic particles. Around the 10-minute mark, when those arpeggios open up over the driving sub-bass, you're hearing what it feels like to witness billions of coral polyps releasing their futures into the current—somewhere between vulnerability and overwhelming abundance.

We captured real hydrophone recordings during last year's spawning event, threading them through the percussion beds. Those tiny pops and clicks aren't digital artifacts—they're the actual sound of coral releasing egg bundles into open water.

One engineer described the final mix as "what hope sounds like underwater." After months of tracking bleaching statistics and watching that creeping temperature line, this felt like the necessary catharsis—the reminder that renewal remains possible, even after tremendous stress.

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.