When the banality of a reminder—“water the plants”—becomes the trigger for an interstellar sonic journey. With Water Planets, released in August 2025 by Projekt Records, Australian Mirko Ruckels, known as deepspace, imagines an aquatic and musical refuge where ambient blends with science fiction.
In two distinct parts—one contemplative, the other technological—the album unfolds a narrative of anticipation where music becomes the ocean, machines and ecologies intertwine. True to his impressionist sensibility, Ruckels colors these worlds with Ravelian echoes and translucent electronic layers. Released in August 2025 on Projekt Records Water Planets is signed by Mirko Ruckels, aka Deepspace. This ambient album is a sonic diptych: first, a peaceful immersion in the depths, then, a respectful technological exploration. Between dystopian narration and ambient wonder, deepspace signs a sensitive musical stroll.
The first half flows like slow, translucent water, where each note dissolves into synthetic algae. Ruckels reveals his taste for suggestion rather than evidence: an aesthetic nourished by Debussy and Ravel, filtered by a slow ambient. We perceive an intimate, almost watercolor architecture, where clarity is as fragile as the breath of a reef… The second part is electrified: drones and sequencers cross paths like vessels coming to collect water from the Hydros planets. Here, the musician lets his fascination for the technological future speak, but he retains a poetic nuance. His machines do not destroy; they listen, converse, embrace ecosystems. An ambient that reconciles engineering and delicacy.
Rewind: it all started with a simple typo, the chance of a misspelled “water planets.” — “water plants” became “water planets” — an accident that transformed into a narrative cosmos. True to his approach, deepspace makes the infinitesimal a source of imagination. This album demonstrates his ability to transfigure an everyday detail into an immersive fresco, to stretch the moment so that it becomes a world. Echoes & Resonances: the ambient community quickly hailed this work as one of the most accomplished of his career.
Listeners see it as a double odyssey: “part one is more ambient, and part two is more sequencer driven,” writes one, while another confides: “It’s the best ambient music I’ve heard in years. Lots of variety in its watery style.” In the blue echo of Water Planets, Mirko Ruckels reminds us that ambient music is never fixed: it breathes, expands, reinvents itself. Music like a sound buoy, reaching towards the future, but anchored in a profoundly human sensitivity.
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