the album celebrates some of the world's major water bodies and surrounding areas. although presented as a proper album, it contains tracks from throughout the early career of the band, and was designed as a sort of "best of" collection. compared to "mystic island", this album's tracks mostly come from the albums "cusco ii", "virgin islands" and "ring der delphine", but has selected tracks from other albums as well, as well as the brand new track "chorus", an alternate version of "flying condor" from the "apurimac" album. each track has been remastered for this release. additionally, some of the tracks have been edited to shorten them, most noticeably "bur said", "jebel at tarik", and "bodensee".