Under After built lostwaves.com, a music discovery experience that transforms album browsing into a journey across a digital ocean. The site combines Babylon.js and WebGL rendering with Jekyll static architecture.
Lost Waves is Mark Forscher's experimental electronic music project. Under After designed the platform to match the music's meditative aesthetic, building an immersive 3D environment where each release floats as a reflective plane on an ocean surface. Visitors scroll through the complete discography while a star field glimmers overhead. The interface removes conventional navigation chrome, allowing the music and visual experience to dominate.
Under After chose WebGL technology to deliver 3D rendering in the browser, leveraging Babylon.js for real-time graphics and GSAP for UI transitions, supported by Claude Code on the technical implementation.
Technical Architecture
The site is built on Jekyll: the static site generator acts as a content management system for album metadata while Babylon.js handles all visual rendering. This hybrid approach delivers the performance benefits of static HTML with the interactive capabilities of a WebGL application.
The 3D ocean scene uses Babylon's WaterMaterial for realistic reflections and refractions. Album covers render as textured planes positioned along a horizontal axis, scrolling through the scene as users navigate. A custom skybox displays gradient twilight colors that reflect in the water surface.
Audio playback runs through a custom crossfading system built on the Web Audio API. Standard HTML5 audio lacks overlap capabilities, so a preloading system was developed that fetches adjacent tracks, manages playback buffers, and executes smooth volume transitions between songs. An audio gate handles browser autoplay policies, prompting user interaction before initializing playback on desktop.
The lostwaves.com site launched in 2025 as the internet presence for Lost Waves. The site demonstrates how opinionated technical implementation can enhance artistic presentation.