“What The Ocean Is Like At Night” is the new album from guitarist Rob Byrd. The music expresses and reflects on a lifetime of living near the Atlantic Ocean, first in Southern New Jersey and currently in New England.

With these sounds, Byrd aims to convey the majesty and mystery of the nighttime sea. He has always been fascinated by how something so expansive and wild could also be so calming and reassuring; equally compelling to him is how the ocean seems to transform into something different as day shifts to night, as if replaced by something even more vast and unfathomable.

Byrd has always loved how the sea is depicted in 18th century Gothic Novels; during breaks in the recording of the album, he read the seven “Horrid Novels” referred to in Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey”. The depictions of the sea, and of natural phenomena in general, contained in them resonated sympathetically with his aesthetic vision for the album.

While his 7 previous albums have featured a range of compositional structures, this new music is his first release that is completely improvised, treating the recording of each song as a combination of meditation, recollection, and performance. The textures and atmospheres heard are produced in real-time by playing guitar through digital sound design environments created by Byrd; there are no overdubs, backing tracks, looping, or additional instrumentation used. A different effects environment was created for each song. The aim was to devise a holistic recording modality that would allow music and memories, sensations, and imagination to come to life organically. The recording of each song became a ritual resulting in a completed piece of music.

Summoning alluring musical environments with the guitar has always been important to him. This creative impulse came into focus through conversations with renowned light artist James Turrell at the University of Delaware, when Byrd was a student there and assisting Turrell with building his "Jida" installation. A chance meeting with guitar icon John Fahey was another transformative experience. Fahey, who happened to be shopping in the same record store as Byrd, bought an early demo copy of Byrd's first album as it played over the store’s sound system. The encouragement and insights Fahey offered during that encounter has had a lasting influence.

Byrd performs in a wide variety of venues, from clubs and cafes to galleries and libraries. Some of his past shows have taken place at the legendary CBGB, Burning Man (at which he first performed his live guitar score to the 1928 classic silent film "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc"), the Queens Museum of Art, and the Southworth Planetarium. His music has been used as the soundtrack for several independent films and has appeared in HBO’s “The Sopranos.” His songs have been included in a recent broadcast of NPR's nationally-syndicated program "Hearts of Space". The 2020 Amazon Prime Original film “Witch Hunters” features Byrd’s music as its score.