OCEANICA
Weird and wonderful prog project from the south coast of England.
“I HAVE ALWAYS HAD a penchant for the weird and wonderful, all the way back to when I was writing my first song as a 12-year-old on an acoustic,” admits Benedict Harris-Hayes, the brains behind this solo project. “Oceanica has been around since about 2012 when I wrote a load of music that was going to come out, but I just lost all confidence in myself and my abilities, which was whipped up like a sandstorm by a bad bout of imposter syndrome, clinical depression, bad health news, and an escalating and dangerous flirtation of drugs and alcohol. I remembered that music is not a saviour, but a tool to be used to help me express myself, and that led me to realising my vision for Oceanica, which is merely a musical extension of my psyche. But it’s a hopeful journey that I wanted to share because I spent too many years living in the dark!”