Article Contributed by Calabro Music Media
Published on 2026-11-04
Particle Kid, the ingenious musical identity of Los Angeles–based singer–songwriter, musician, visual artist, and activist Micah Nelson, and legendary artist and producer Daniel Lanois have announced The Ocean Floor, an evocative new album collaboration out February 26 via Loosegroove Records. Instilled with immeasurable sonic imagination and vivid lyrical depth, the eleven-song collection traverses themes of freedom and transcendence, enhanced by enveloping atmospherics and dynamic arrangements that veer from stripped-down minimalism to future folk, ambient psychedelia, and electrifying indie rock. Dense, gently hypnotic, and utterly its own, The Ocean Floor dives deep below the surface of these strange and unknowable times, exploring our increasingly cluttered and technologically integrated society with an inspired, indefinable sound.
“The Ocean Floor is the crux from which all these songs poured out. It’s pretty much the last true mysterious frontier on this planet,” says Nelson. “The modern world can too often feel like a dystopian hellhole, where we’re bombarded by pop-up ads for the war machine, every new building is gray and soulless and built cheaply, and nothing seems to really have much integrity. Everything seems like a corporate circle jerk, the enshittification of the user experience of reality. These feelings evolved into a sort of narrative about people fleeing the privatized prison world toward the ocean floor, which had become this living entity: a primordial deep consciousness that was calling them through dreams, toward the future. We wanted to create a sense of hope amidst the sorrow in these songs, and the idea that a healthier world is possible, even if it requires us to seek it within ourselves and then work outwardly. The Ocean Floor became, for me, like the depths of the heart from which all human creativity emerges.”
Alongside the album announcement, Nelson and Lanois have shared the album’s first single, “Even the Birds” (Listen/Watch Here). Accompanied by a hallucinatory Nelson-directed video, the song unfolds over a deeply textural rhythmic pulse of intertwined Moog, synths, and drum machines, countered by Nelson’s magnetic vocal. A subtle yet spiraling momentum boils over in the climactic crescendo: “Life lost, light found, follow the sound, follow the light.”
“Particle Kid was on tour with the Flaming Lips in ‘23 and we had a day off somewhere. I was sitting alone by a river that ran under a little street bridge. A bird flew out from under the bridge and swooped up into the air. I followed the bird thinking it would disappear into the infinite horizon, but it plopped down onto a tree just a hundred feet away. I thought ‘even the birds can’t get outta this town…’ and the rest of the lyrics appeared. It’s a ‘grass is always greener’ sort of song—wherever you go, there you are. Sometimes the best move is to stay put even if you have the chance to fly away,” says Nelson. “I had initially recorded a sketchy demo version of this song on my laptop in a hotel room somewhere on the road and sent it to Dan. I’m pretty sure some of the sounds from that hotel room demo ended up on the record version! That funky bass line is a combo of me playing Moog Taurus pedals at Daniel’s house and Aroyn Day playing his electric bass when we later recorded it with the live band.”
Nelson and Lanois took a different approach to every song, making each its own unforgettable world. Their prodigious use of old-school instrumentation—acoustic and electric guitars, piano, pedal steel, Mellotron, and more—is countered by seemingly infinite waves of dubbed-out synths and multitracked vocals, blurring the boundaries between authentic performance and studio experimentation to create a textural undertow ideally suited to their overall theme. They were joined by Particle Kid bassist Aroyn Day and Lanois’ longtime percussionist Kyle Crane (Lorde, Madison Cunningham) and bassist Daryl Johnson (The Neville Brothers, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris), while engineer Gerardo Ordonez (Arcade Fire, Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby) and Lanois’ veteran co-producer/right-hand man Wayne Lorenz assisted in the recording. In keeping with the project’s homespun spirit, they gathered at Lanois’ home studio, Bella Vista, in Silver Lake, spending 10 days expanding the songs to seamlessly amalgamate their original tracks with the live band recordings in a way that felt coherent.
In an era defined by accelerated culture and a constant sense of impending chaos, The Ocean Floor offers a hopeful glimpse at hidden vistas and the possibility of a Shangri-La still unseen.
“I believe we got to a special place with this record,” Lanois says. “I hope that people find something in the message of this work. I think that the record stands out simply for its values. Hopefully we can touch a few hearts, help inspire a world that has cleaner water, more kindness, and more consideration.”
Having devoted considerable time to recording their joint project, Nelson and Lanois are now eager to share the music with as many listeners as possible. They’ve announced seven shows in 2027 with performances on the West Coast and in Texas to present The Ocean Floor, with additional dates expected shortly.
Particle Kid & Daniel Lanois
Tour Dates
2/27 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Forever
2/28 - Joshua Tree, CA - Joshua Tree Retreat Center
3/10 - Portland, OR - Portland Jazz Festival
3/11 - Seattle, WA - The Triple Door
3/12 - Seattle, WA - Easy Street Records (In-Store Set & Signing)
3/20 - Dallas, TX - Kessler Theater
3/21 - Tulsa, OK - Studio Church
Particle Kid & Daniel Lanois
The Ocean Floor
1. Have Another Day
2. Surface
3. Even the Birds
4. Dreaming
5. Daylight Come
6. I Found Today
7. Bleed
8. Corner
9. Save the World
10. The Ocean Floor
11. The Silence
The Ocean Floor is available to pre-order + pre-save here.
The Ocean Floor will not be available on Spotify and Amazon.
Read a statement from Nelson here.
