Luke Woodapple

Berlin, Germany

The Darkside of the Ocean

AmbientClassical

Behind the Music

Ian has broken new ground with his reporting and with this music project. When he contacted me and asked if I wanted to get involved with The Outlaw Ocean Music Project, I immediately set to work sifting through the rich material available. I had heard about illegal overfishing and harsh working conditions for seafarers, but I was overwhelmed and shocked by the level of lawlessness that exists with impunity at sea. The exploitation and abuse captured in chapters like “The Scofflaw Fleet” moved me most.

As empathic people, we cannot continue to ignore what is happening on our oceans but rather confront these issues and make them known worldwide. I’ve tried to process this dark underbelly of the ocean with my music, showcasing its ability to give power as well as make you powerless. As a musician and composer, I’ve been given the freedom to compose my own music using Ian’s rich sound archive. This gives the songs the chance to become almost collaborations between the journalist and composer. I truly consider this project, and the innovative way it reveals crimes that go unpunished, to be one of the most important and unique projects today.

Luke Woodapple
About Luke Woodapple

Luke Woodapple is a producer, composer, pianist and bassist who also plays guitar & trumpet. He is a classically trained singer and plays drums. Influenced in his early years by funk, soul and blues, he had been active as a session player during the ‘80s and ‘90s of the last century. In the early 2000’s he started out being active as a producer and later on founded his own music label "Woodapple Music." In recent years he focused on piano tunes, mostly on quiet timbre. Lately he has been working on combining elements of the various musical styles that have shaped his music. This can be heard in his project, "Out of Berlin." Thanks for listening.

Winner of the 2021 Scripps Howard Award for Excellence in Innovation in Journalism

The Journalism behind the Music

All music in this project is based on The Outlaw Ocean, a New York Times Best-Selling book by Ian Urbina that chronicles lawlessness at sea around the world. This reporting touches on a diversity of abuses ranging from illegal and overfishing, arms trafficking at sea, human slavery, gun running, intentional dumping, murder of stowaways, thievery of ships and other topics.

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