Smote - Songs from the Free House (2025)

I'm so surprised that I have just found Daniel Foggin aka Smote's new album in Tethered Hand's summary of the best post-rock albums of 2025! I'm surprised because by pure coincidence I will be covering Tethered Hand's release... tomorrow! It's also interesting because it shows how diverse post-rock music can be as Smote's music is just on the border of the genre, yet impresses with similar elements as more traditional post-rock projects.

Foggin blends so many things in his musical cauldron, man! The album starts like a perfect drone release, but then it shifts from desert rock into post-rock passages into space rock psychedelia. And then there is this thing with the flute music whatever you can call it. Listening to this album is genuinely like a road trip with new things to appreciate in every minute of the passing soundscape. And in reality the trip takes place on a desert in outer space and you are in a heavy tank, rocking on the uneven surface of the planet.

The album feels extremely heavy with the heaviness of doom and sludge, even if, quite frequently, it becomes calm and almost soothing. How is it possible? The quiet fragments are designed to emphasize everything else, like the ethereal choral chants in Chamber or the slow guitar riffs everywhere else. It's difficult to imagine an album so diverse and at the same time so coherent: the form changes but the mood stays the same til the end. Ah, yes, and Lankum's Ian Lynch is here too!

Songs from the Free House costs 8 EUR (6.99 GBP).

Check: Wynne

Country: UK

Genre: heavy space rock

Label: Rocket Recordings

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Tsarewitch - Yer (2025)

Drones and pipe organ sounds sounds like a perfect combination to me. So I had to take a closer look at this EP. Released by Alexander Yordaki, an artist from Moldova who wanted to draw people's attention to the situation in his homeland, the elusive Gaugazia in the southern part of Moldova.

Thematically speaking, it's worth taking a look at the artist's description of this album where he briefly talks about who the Gaugaz people are and what is the danger for them right now (spoiler alert, like in most cases in our part of the world, the answer is "Russia"). So go to his Bandcamp and read it. And then maybe Wikipedia to have a better idea of the complexity of this case. (and yes, I'm happy to say that it's my first Moldavian artist on the blog, not to mention a Gaugaz one!)

Musically speaking, the EP is one composition made of sloooow and deeeep sound of pipe organs with some subtle additions in the form of "recordings from Yalpug, a steppe valley in Comrat where a dry riverbed divides the suburb from the town" and a bit of spoken word samples towards the end. The whole thing feels extremely nostalgic and it's not a coincidence as it is a piece of very personal music about what one person sees as a home.

Yer costs 1 EUR.

Check: Yer

Country: Moldova

Genre: pipe organ drone

Label: Reflection Nebula

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Desolate Horizons - October Noise (2025)

This is one of the artists who produce tons of ambient music but also every release from him I come across, makes me feel in a very special way. This heavy, overwhelming ambient soundscapes are something you can feel more than hear.

Even if this is not an album, it's just 4 relatively short tracks, it is no different. The sound here feels strange and unnerving, dangerous and overwhelming, but also there is a lot of this airy hope and ethereal pleasure. So it is not a surprise that the musician states the following:"Through this release, I am trying to make sense of life again, and to come to terms with the grief and horror that reality has brought in recent years". What is life if not exactly what the music here evokes?

October Noise costs 4 USD.

Check: An Ongoing Heartbreak

Genre: ethereal soundscape

Desolate Horizons - The Vague and Terrible Uncertainty (2019)

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Nac/Hut Report - Blue Afternoon (2025)

There is few Polish music projects that can be identified after the first second of their tracks. Nac/Hut Report is certainly one of them: the uniqueness of their ambient pop is genuinely impressive and it's not only uniqueness for its own sake. The duo creates music that feels a bit like a journey to some extraterrestrial lands and a bit like something extremely close to the heart.

Normally ambient pop makes me think of drone backgrounds and barely audible vocals put over them. Basically Midwife. But the Kraków-based project refreshes the concept, developing the backgrounds into full-fledged experimental sounds with some industrial flavour to them, thoroughly pressed down by the gramophone-like noise that makes the colourful mosaic of very different sounds feel like a coherent canvas that can be painted over with the vocals. And those also are a little bit different: they are quite well audible but definitely not easy to decipher either so that the mystery that embraces Nac/Hut Report's music deepens and deepens with every song and every album they produce.

I particularly like when those layers of sounds, not very loud on their own, are placed on each other, creating a sound that is not far from overwhelming while still being the slowcorest of slowcores. The duo definitely makes for one of the most least-known-but-deserving-much-more artists based in this country.

Blue Afternoon costs 2.5 EUR (10 PLN).

Check: Comet

Country: Poland

Genre: experimental ambient pop

Label: enjoy life

Nac/Hut Report - Absent (2023)

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Concepcion Huerta - El Sol de los Muertos (2025)

Sound textures, audio soundscapes, narratives delivered by notes only. Concepcion Huerta is a Mexican artist whose drones and ambient sounds create an emotional cocktail deeply rooted in her geographical background. The veins of the world are open again, just like the cover art suggests.

This emotional piece was created "entirely within a subharmonic framework and meticulously processed through tape manipulation". It has to be said that not all of the sounds here are gonna be pleasant, in fact, it's quite the opposite: some of the tracks are designed to evoke nightmares of deep undergrounds and the worlds of the dead. There is, however, no notion of morality here I think, described pictures are not terrifying or charming, they just are. It's the truth about the world as seen by the artist and as transcribed into these monumental soundscapes.

El Sol de los Muertos costs 7 EUR.

Check: El Sol de los Muertos

Country: Mexico

Genre: droney soundscape

Label: Umor-Rex

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Amulets - Not Around but Through (2025)

This is not ambient electronica for easily startled people. The Oregon soundscapes icon brought the next album in his discography this year and filled it with an ambitious take on ambient music: it can be overwhelming, it can feel heavy, but it is always as beautiful and emotionally marked as possible.

The album explores the "process of acceptance and the tumultuous journey of looking within" with mesmerizing soundscapes that may sound nice and kind at the start, but soon enough evolve into a slow-motion avalanche of organ-like noise. A beautiful one too. And this is a common pattern on the album. The music here is a curious kaleidoscope of genres including drones and post-rock and almost anything you can imagine.

And ambient pop. And when Midwife borrows some of her fuzzy magic to an album, you know it has to be good.

Not Around but Through costs 10 USD.

Check: Myriads

Country: Oregon, US

Genre: heavy soundscape

Label: Beacon Sound

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Ritual Cloak - Vanished in Transition (2023)

The Welsh project Ritual Cloak consists of Daniel Barnett, (known from the post-rock outfit Samoans) and producer Andrew Sanders. Together they released a new EP this year, which is said to be a change in their musical direction.

Vanished in Transition is filled with slow, introspective compositions that don't hurry anywhere and flow peacefully but also melancholically on and on. The post-rock origins of Barnett are pretty audible as the compositions are based on delicate guitar noise and slow, pulsating beats as well as some jazzy influences here and there. This corresponds brilliantly with the soft, sad vocals that feel like they were there but not really. Like a mist in the distance of this soundscape. It's no wonder that the album was born from the band's "fascination of disappearing", everything here is so airy that may as well suddenly disappear into thin air.

Vanished in Transition costs 9.5 EUR (8 GBP).    

Check: Left Behind

Country: Wales, UK

Genre: post-rock soundscape

Label: Bubblewrap Collective

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The Lonely Bell - Ghost Town Burning (2023)

Coming from the very North of Scotland, from Isle of Lewis, The Lonely Bell brings with himself a beautiful and melancholic drone soundscape on his new album called Ghost Town Burning.

It's a calm and steady soundscape. It's not the winds and the ocean of the North, it's its grey weather and stillness. Nothing really moves and nothing really wants to. The drones form a sea of static, melancholic sounds that should hypnotize any one of you. If you can't go North and settle in a cozy hut on the ocean cliff, this album is "hypnotic, bewitching, and ultimately restorative", a real pause in the middle of your hectic life. 

Ghost Town Burning costs 5 EUR.

Check: Ghost Town Burning

Country: Scotland, UK

Genre: drone soundscape

Label: Blackjack Illuminist Records

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Penelope Trappes - Heavenly Spheres (2023)

With her fourth album, Penelope Trappes, most probably the best ambient pop artist out there, continues with her ultimately ethereal way of creating music. Surprisingly NOT titled "Penelope Four", Heavenly Spheres 

The artist is a queen of combining extremely dark, gothic and post-industrial ambient soundscapes with extremely airy vocals. There melodies here are almost non-existent, but it's on purpose: vocals are yet another way of creating the unbelievably eerie atmosphere of the compositions. And it's a vital part as the album is kept in a very minimalist way: it was created with "only [the artist's] voice, an upright piano and an old German reel to reel tape deck". The result are even more unnerving then typically with her music. Even if there are field recordings of spring-inspired bird chirping, Penelope Trappes can still transform the ultimate symbol of life into moody darkness.

The album was created during  two-week residency for Britten Pears Arts that made it possible for the artist to embrace a particular way of creating her music. As she stated: "I immersed myself in solitude and often deafening silence, and coexisted with an enormous amount of history and books" and I feel like you can really hear it on this album.

Heavenly Spheres costs 8 EUR (7 GBP).

Penelope Trappes - Penelope Three (2021)

Check: A Seagull Learns to Sleep Alone

Country: Australia/UK

Genre: ambient pop

Label: Nite Hive

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Mike Lazarev - Sacred Tonalities (2023)

The Ukraine-born artist Mike Lazarev has released his first album through Past Inside the Present and at least 5th in general recently. Sacred Tonalities is meant to evoke a "meditative state of mind. Like the ocean. Like breathing" and it definitely succeeds.

This mesmerizing album is a wave of sound layers that overlap each other, creating one deep whole that can easily swallow the listener into its abysses. Its soft and calm drones feel as if they could as easily burst into a sonic chaos but they just don't feel like it at the moment. It was created to create a safe space for self-reflecting moments and it sure is this way, I just recognize more grandeur and more overwhelming potential here. It's clearly just like the ocean. 

Sacred Tonalities costs 7 USD.

Check: Tonality Number One

Country: Ukraine/UK

Genre: droney soundscape

Label: Past Inside the Present

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Lost in Reverb - (H)ours (2023)

Nicolás Madrid from the Argentinian city of Marcos Paz is a drone artist whose music creates some beautiful, although harsh soundscapes. Ones that I'd imagine would fit perfectly the southern end of the artist's home country. His new EP is called (H)ours.

The music here is a nice combination of space, dark ambient with uncomfortable presence of drone music. Some of the cosmic peace, represented by the cover art's picture of the Moon, is also audible here. Especially in the hopefully titled second track on the album. And the more beautiful face of this music is shown when the piano keys are introduced in The Hours in Mare Imbrium, my favourite track here.

(H)ours costs 3 USD.

Check: The Hours in Mare Imbrium

Country: Argentina

Genre: droney space ambient

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øjeRum - Reversed Cathedral (2022)

The Denmark-based artist with mysteriously Polish-sounding name Paw Grabowski, makes his absolutely fantastic visual art as  øjeRum. Additionally, he creates ambient music and his newest LP is called Reversed Cathedral.

The droney soundscapes, the artist creates, feel very complex and artsy at the same time. There's a lot going on, but it's all drowned in the slow-paced, static drone that makes your mind going to various places. It's like a fossil inside an amber: life enchanted in the beautiful stillness. And of course, as it should be expected from a graphic artist, Grabowski's cover art is exceptional. I love his style and I have to say that his cover arts are ALWAYS exceptional.

Reversed Cathedral costs 8 EUR.

Check: The Smile

Country: Denmark

Genre: lively ambient

Label: Cyclic Law

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VIRUS2020 - SECT ط​ا​ئ​ف​ه (2022)

Rami Harrabir is an artist from Tunisia who creates various kinds of electronic music, but as VIRUS2020 focuses on very dark ambient soundscapes. His album SECT ط​ا​ئ​ف​ه makes it very clear.

His gloomy soundscapes are extremely immersive, one can feel them coming from every direction. Like an incoming night somewhere in the Tunisian desert. Especially that some parts include some obvious references to local, Arab folk which makes it only very unique. But the album is not just an oriental gimmick, Harrabir is really fluent in creating dark and bass-heavy drony ambient and I'm here for it. Interestingly enough, probably the most ear-catching track here, Crucified but ... مصلوب و لكن features Oiseaux-Tempête's Frédéric D. Oberland which only adds to the album's rich sound.

SECT ط​ا​ئ​ف​ه costs 3 USD.

Check: Crucified but ... مصلوب و لكن 

Country: Tunisia

Genre: oriental dark ambient

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Departing / Serein - Elegy (2022)

Some music is meant to convey certain feelings and messages. Like it is with this kind of dark drone soundscape from the split release by Departing and Serein. 

I can't say much about the two artists but this album was born out of death of someone they cared about so much that this sudden loss lead to the sonic way of mourning. The two tracks are filled with drone soundscapes that are as dark as the feeling of loss and so touching as well. The music here is static and cold, filled with sadness and regret. I can't think of a better way of expressing those.

Elegy costs 1 USD.

Check: The Emptiness in Loss

Country: Pennsylvania, US

Genre: dark drone

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Clouds Are Learning - Where Dreams Fade Away (2022)

Leandro Liguori, who makes music as Clouds Are Learning, comes back to the blog with another ultra moody, though not very long, album called Where Dreams Fade Away. His project provides us with striking, beautiful and very calm music experience.

The soundscapes here are subtly noisy and drony in the backgrounds while filled with beautiful, rain-like piano keys in the centre of attention. The melancholia enchanted within this music is so overwhelming that the audience must try as hard as they can not to succumb to it. Because when they do, there's little chance for save. Especially when those particularly tear-jerking moments hit, like the hidden voice samples in The Descent. But the peak of the mood is reached in less "flashy" way, namely, in the slow finish of the title track that really feels like the death of a dream and I love the sadness it comes with.

Where Dreams Fade Away costs 4 USD.

Clouds Are Learning - Slow Cities and Fake Lights (2019)

Check: The Descent

Country: Argentina

Genre: neoclassical soundscape

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Alessandro Incorvaia - It Emerged to Hold Me (2022)

Alessandro Incorvaia comes from Italy but is based in London. Although his music career seems to be pretty rich, this year's It Emerged to Hold Me is his solo debut album. It is filled with heavy ambient that comes as a result of time it was created in.

Being created during the difficult months of pandemics at its peak, the album, as the artist states, became "score and soundtrack of those months and of the process that was unfolding at that time". And fittingly, it is based on layers of distorted synths and guitars, creating very peaceful but also dangerously dark atmosphere of loneliness and nostalgia. But in time, it can get some tempo and becomes a mesmerizing trip towards hope.

Finally, the most interesting fact for me is that the cover art was done by Uls Metzger whom I know personally. Crazy coincidence.

It Emerged to Hold Me costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: A part of me and I'll take care of

Country: Italy/UK

Genre: melancholic soundscape

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Pjusk & Chihei Hatakeyama - Svaberg (2022)

Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik aka Pjusk comes from Norway and creates some perfectly moody soundscapes. Especially when he can enjoy the cooperation with the iconic Chihei Hatakeyama as it is on their album called Svaberg.

Their music feels both warm and very dark. No wonder that half of the track titles contain the word "mørke" which translates from Norwegian to "dark". The soundscapes are dense and overwhelming, but also very warm and welcoming. It is not the unnerving dark ambient industrial music; the focus is set on beauty and the ability to spark a self-reflective moment in the listeners. The good news for the fans is that Gjelsvik already announced that there's more material coming from the duo.

Svaberg costs 5 USD.

Chihei Hatakeyama - Maybe (2017)

Check: Tussmørke

Country: Norway, Japan

Genre: moody soundscape

Label: Fnugg Fonogram

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Heather Woods Broderick - Domes (2022)

Heather Woods Broderick is a multi-instrumentalist and a singer from Portland. The artist worked together with such artists as Horse Feathers, Efterklang, and Nils Frahm, and while listening to her music, it's hardly a surprise. The beautiful and very melancholic soundscapes she creates fill the new album called Domes.

Although cello is not Broderick's main instrument, this album is filled with compositions based on its sounds. It helped the artist through the pandemics times when she was in "need to find moments of respite in response to the chaotic and turbulent times we all faced in that period". And so the whole album is all about transferring this into the audience with the use of looped pieces that are to mesmerize the listener and drive them into this contemplating state that can sonically heel almost anything.

Domes costs 7 EUR.

Check: Tor

Country: Oregon, US

Genre: cello soundscape

Label: Dauw

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staszek fungus - frequencies on the fifth floor (2022)

Michał Lejczak creates his music as Staszek Fungus and he has recently released his first album at the Opus Elefantum label. After showing two long plays last year, frequencies on the fifth floor has better chance to get better visible in the drone/ambient world.

His style involves tons of subtle drones that together create vast and still soundscapes around the listener. There's no pace whatsoever, just the music that absorbs you and lets you slide into this kind of meditative state that is so valuable at times. It's quiet but it's always there, subtle but very tangible. And when there's finally something showing up in 2.2, like a gloomy and sombre structure on the horizon, it makes a real impact on the audience. 

frequencies on the fifth floor costs 4 EUR (16 PLN).

Check: 2.2

Country: Poland

Genre: drone soundscape

Label: Opus Elefantum

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SHRINE - Nausicaä (2022)

I learned about Hristo Gospodinov's music from NERATERRÆ's album Scenes from the Sublime on which Shrine featured. This year's Nausicaä is my first time with the artist alone and I must say, I am so impressed with his unique attempt at dark ambient experience.

The album is said to be inspired by a Japanese manga called Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - which doesn't mean anything to me, but apparently it is a text about a gloomy, post-apocalyptic world and it is all clearly audible on the release. Gospodinov achieves this thick and unnerving atmosphere by mixing the soft and dreamy ambient soundscapes with dark and extremely overwhelming industrial parts. It is unbelievable how easy it is for the artist to create this dangerous world the soundscape of which we are lucky to explore from a safe (for now) place at our homes.

Nausicaä costs 8 EUR.

Check: Like a God of Death

Country: Bulgaria

Genre: industrial dark ambient

Label: Cyclic Law

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