‘An Ocean Between, Pt. 1’ is not your average album. In fact, it’s much more than that: a large, thematic release packed with heartwarming tones and cinematic allure, all wrapped into a complex lyrical saga. Described to us as “a 12-year long-distance ‘almost’ love story between a Christian and an atheist”, the record marks the latest effort by Los Angeles-based songwriter and creative INYO.
Across eleven episodes, ‘An Ocean Between, Pt. 1’ unfolds like a giant emotional wave, a triumph of nuanced, evocative charge and elegant arrangements, from gentle indie-rock to electronic textures and back. Crowning it all, we find INYO’s malleable and expressive vocals, a joy to listen to.
Intrigued by the album, we caught up with INYO to learn more about the album and his artistry… Interview below!
Hey INYO, thanks for chatting with us! Delving into your latest album, ‘An Ocean Between, Pt. 1’, and some of the reasoning behind it, it looks to me like the way you approach your artistry and musical practice is very honest and wholesome. You don’t appear to be looking for commercial success or running behind contemporary trends. Am I correct on that? Do you experience music in a very personal and authentic way?
Hi Gab, thank you so much for your time and also for this specific question. I genuinely appreciate it because it’s true; I am not inherently looking for what we would commonly define as success. I believe that the arts are the expressions of the soul and the body unified. Even in commercial corporate work, that seems to be the case, but the question there becomes what the substance of the heart is, and I want to be clear that this isn’t a judgement of any art, but simply a point of understanding and examination.
The way I experience music as an artist and a listener is the sort of whittling away at all of the stuff of life that tries to add or take away from us to make us something different. There is an inward place that stretches into our whole being that longs to be stretched out and free and seen truly, and sound is vibrations that break down the matters that cover it. So it is a sort of washing and easing to find connection and the fullest, truest parts of self in a universe of connection. I hope that all makes sense and isn’t too convoluted, but it is genuinely how the work of music occurs to me, and I am so thankful for it.
Before we focus on the album, I’d love to know who INYO is, in human terms, and what brought you to music-making. Have you been doing this for a while?
Sure. Well, I think probably most musicians have their roots in their childhood, and that would certainly be true for me. Maybe this isn’t the question you’re asking, but I think it is relevant. I think that songs are like capsules for memories: first, from the experiences of the artist, and then to those who take it in and accept it and want to utilise it. Of course, that isn’t our inherent intention, but I do think it is the obvious effect if we look at it.
Songs can take us back into a place or a feeling or whatever it is we want to (and sometimes don’t want to) recall. Some of us have a more fluid relationship with songs, and it becomes more of a broad music experience, where a chord progression or a musical phrase rhythmically or sonically speaks and draws out something. When we have that, we are songwriters ready to unfold. So I started exploring sound as far as I can remember in a very personal way, at least since I was in elementary school, and it is now a capsule for me to be able to look at the innocence of my younger self who knew something greater than what I am inclined to now.
That is, that hope is real, and there is comfort somewhere beyond this moment, and that the best thing I can choose is to love you, no matter who you are, even as you are here and now. So I really want to continue to engage with sound not just as a time capsule for myself, but hopefully as an enrichment offering for others to take a moment to self-reflect, recall, and feel hope and comfort and love. I know this album isn’t perfectly resonant, but it is so present and genuinely displayed that I can’t imagine it saying anything different. It is exactly what it needs to be.
In terms of influences, are there any particular artists or bands that have shaped your creative perspective, either now or while growing up?
Of course, I actually love classical music, so I feel deeply influenced by its intensity and suddenness, especially with some of the composers of the French impressionistic era like Ravel, Fauré, Debussy, etc. They are unafraid to express raw feelings; however, they come out in chords, and I think you’ll hear that in some of the chords I choose. They clash, but not necessarily in a plainly dissonant way, or at least not always. I am also influenced by contemporary writers and singers who do the same, like Jeff Buckley, Neutral Milk Hotel, Hiatus Kaiyote, Willow, Incubus, and several more. I also really love that sweet, earnest heart that artists like Jack Johnson, Alexi Murdoch, and Norah Jones bring. I just love what we all do in our creative universes; it is so inspiring.
‘An Ocean Between, Pt. 1’ can be defined as an elegant album, an 11-track body of work that threads the fine line between orchestral lusciousness, acoustic tenderness, and songwriting nostalgia. Are you proud of how the record turned out? How long has it been in the works?
I am deeply proud of how the music was made, and I think it was reflected in its sound. My ultimate goal is really to be honest and share a sense of hope in the midst of our pain points. It is just that part of the whittling and washing away until we end up at the truthful core of oneself. Every session I had with my producer (Shoolace) was first a meal, listening to each other and deepening our understanding and connection with each other, and then praying to settle into the heart and truth and get ego out of the way.
The music for this album really started on a phone with some videos back to 2017 that eventually led me to the fall of 2024, when I met Shoolace and asked him to produce this album with me. From the beginning of production, reconstruction and fleshing out of those tracks and lyrics, until its final version took almost a year exactly.
There’s quite a poignant storyline woven throughout the EP, that being “the exhausting beauty of a 12-year, long-distance ‘almost’ love story”. Is this a personal tale for you? Can you expand more on its real-world consequences? Does the story lead to a resolution?
Yes, it is a personal tale. It’s a funny thing because this process can feel so intense and immense when considering its overall impact, but actually it is a thread of 12 years of writing letters and postcards, and having heightened moments of a genuine and deep love whose summation is attempted, in part, in less than an hour. The real-world consequences are particularly interesting because this relationship had started in the summer, between two strangers whose parents lived across the street from each other.
We had both just finished up college, and I think there was a clear and profound impact that either of us had on the other. We had only spent a short while together before I had to move to Los Angeles, but our connection lived through postcards and letters, and occasionally we would find ourselves in each other’s company through the decade. In 2017, I felt the strong urge to try and reconnect with her in a deeper way, so I went to visit her in Portland, where she was living at the time, and I remember feeling a profound sense of love from her just by who and how she naturally is.
When I returned to Los Angeles, I would have moments where I would be thinking about her, and those thoughts and feelings would lead me to suddenly grab a guitar to try and find my voice and feelings in it all. I would record those moments on my phone, and once in a while she would receive a random and entirely unprompted video of these messy musical expressions of the heart. Those videos are what became this album.
Our connection was incredibly inconsistent, and I think my affections were always more ready than hers to show up in a romantic way. Still, most of our times together have left me feeling well loved. Eventually, in late 2024, I found the emotional and arguably spiritual strength and prompting to make this album. It was almost as if the words and idea of “it’s time” were spoken directly into me, and what came with it (unusually) was an understanding of the producer I should work with (Shoolace), and not too long after, a moment where she (the Portland girl) wanted to reconnect with me but maybe on a deeper and more romantic level.
That was a simple but drawn-out period that lasted the majority of the time that I was working on this album. I’m very thankful for the timing, and I finally found myself ready to fully give my whole world to her. I think, as ready as she seemed in that first reengagement in 2024, she was still sorting through a lot, and it ended up not progressing probably as either of us had envisioned.
Could we potentially name ‘An Ocean Between, Pt. 1’ as a concept record? I get the sense that it comes as a cohesive, radical package…
This album is absolutely a concept album. Although a majority of the conceptualising started in 2017 with those phone videos, it really didn’t take shape until late 2024 into 2025, when it became a reflection piece. All of it was about wrestling with the confusions and meanings of love, working through what it means to look at God, and wondering if it’s possible for two people to actually look there together.
I really wanted to bring forth raw feelings and honest questions through this album. I am someone who believes in God and has a deep spiritual connection, and she was someone who didn’t believe or maybe didn’t consider those things, but eventually found herself wondering about it all. I think the point of this album is simply an offering to God and to those of us who wrestle with God. And maybe also to those of us who hope to be in good love for at least a long time and recognise that in both points, in all love, there is still wrestling.
I’d love to know more about your songwriting process. Do you usually prefer to write alone? Or do you thrive more in a collaborative space?
I actually love this question, because I think it speaks to the wrestling of the album. I love to just write alone and do what I want, how I want it, when I want it… in all my arrogance, I’ll convince myself that it is better this way. Yet, thankfully, I know that I am the sum of all the wonder and beauty that has been poured out in my whole life, which to me means that my solo work should come first, but I need to be refined for anything to be actually good.
The work must be done with others because it is this ego-death space and a wrestling with others and God there too. I think in all that place, genuine love is birthed, and so then that’s a real place that we can create from. It’s the place that we find our process and progress. I’m not saying wrestling has to be part of it, but I am saying that connection at first requires that we work out the knots to deepen our ability to hold each other well, and that only is found with people around us. Since that’s true, I will quickly conclude that it is easier to work alone and best to work alongside others who are willing to sit in it with you.
Lastly, what’s next for INYO? Are there any big goals coming up?
Even though my goal is not commercial, I really hope that people will listen to my works and hopefully find points of reflection in them. This is ‘An Ocean Between Pt. 1’ because this “almost love story” was deep and wide in my world, so there is a Pt. 2 in process as we speak. I have the phone videos of songs, so it’s only a matter of shaping it well over the next year, and then I am anticipating a spring release. There will be singles along the way, so please join me in this musical uncovering of the heart.