Harbors - When We Are Free (2025)

When two acclaimed neoclassical artists start a new project together, you know it should be good. But when they are also a couple, it's a strong lead that the project will be also very emotional. Hollie and Keith Kenniff created Mint Julep and Meadows before, now they are known as Harbors.

This is my favourite kind of a soundscape: one that feels calm, but also lively. When I know there is many things going on around me, but the whole thing is relaxing and inviting. It's like watching fireflies on a summer night. You are aware that they appear here and there, but it doesn't make the night any less peaceful. And it's the piano keys, they are the fireflies. You have to look for them to appear and then don't lose track of time trying to follow them.

When We Are Free costs 10 USD.

Check: A Portrait of Time

Country: Oregon, US

Genre: lively soundscape

Label: Nettwer Music Group

Hollie Kenniff - For Forever (2024)

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Pan Thorarensen - Ljóstillífun (2025)

Icelandic soundscapes that reflect the country's landscapes just have to be outstanding. It is proven once again on a debut album of Pan Thorarensen, otherwise acclaimed and experienced artist known as a member of the ambient music father-son duo Stereo Hypnosis. 

The album is inspired by Icelandic nature which is really not a surprise. I feel like it's difficult not to get inspired by nature living in such a beautiful place. But it's not just inspiration, Pan used field recordings and made an inspiration into music itself. It's literally giving the voice to the nature. Second thing that draws attention to the album is the guest list. And it is really impressive and including artists like Patricia Wolf and Hoshiko Yamane of Tangerine Dream.

The results are calm and relaxing. There is no place for winter storms, it is more about the peacefulness and emptiness. I can't complaint, especially when some wildly beautiful piano keys appear.

Ljóstillífun costs 6 EUR.

Check: Glitský

Country: Iceland

Genre: instrumental ambient

Label: U Know Me Records

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Vetle Nærø - All Moments Must Pass (2025)

From Moments

I know the Oslo-born neoclassical artist's music from 2023's album From Moments. This year, Vetle Nærø is back with even better album filled with piano, soft electronica and tons of self-reflective abilities. It's worth listening to, even if all moments must pass as the title suggests.

The fourth album in the artist's discography is all about intimacy. The soft piano keys and even softer electronica feels closer than the skin. The main theme of the tracks, the airy, ever-changing and never-repeated nature of life can't be more personal for any human being. The omnipresent atmosphere of the tiniest of concerts is the definition of intimacy. Apart for the music, the artist (I presume) published some very wise words on his BC account, saying that "Impermanence is often seen as a source of suffering, as human resistance to change can be a central cause of our pain. Yet, within this very resistance lies the potential for profound growth".

This is the main theme of the piano-driven album. The overall psychedelic/oriental theme is further established with the use of Alan Watts's monologue sample in First You Are Born and titles such as Mantra and any other as all of them are closely connected to the main thought. Everything passes, but somehow we will be ok.

All Moments Must Pass costs 10 EUR.

Check: First You Are Born

Country: Norway

Genre: electronica-touched neoclassical

Label: piano and coffee records

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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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Masma Dream World - PLEASE COME TO ME (2025)

Unsettling but spiritual, dark but filled with emotions, her live gigs are titled ceremonies. The Gabon-born and New York-based Devi Mambouka, known as Masma Dream World, opens up fantastic spaces to your personal use on her new album and it is recommended to follow her.

Her music involves "invokes, magic, and healing as a form of worship to the universal Dark Mother", making it clear that the experimental industrial dark ambient's biggest trait is its spiritual character audible in the forms of chants and backing vocals that are the leading force of the new album. But there is more, so much more. Even the pace changes as Seeking Your Protection offers a unique, industrial tribal vibes. Not every face of the artist on this album is what I like, but I appreciate the fact that the rather diverse album still feels like a coherent mass of sound.

I'm happy that I will be able to partake in one of her ceremonies during this year's dunk!festival in Ghent. I'm looking forward to this and getting ready my spiritual self. 

PLEASE COME TO ME costs 10 USD.

Check: O, Dark Mother

Country: New York, US

Genre: spiritual dark ambient

Label: Valley of Search

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Niechęć - Reckless Things (2025)

I am a person who famously dislike jazz. Sorry. But when I like an album that is very jazzy, if not jazz full stop, it's a clear indication that the album is really good. It's not Ciśnienie whose post-rock noise is structured like jazz, it's jazz music that feels like post-rock and it's enough for me to get really intrigued by the Polish band's fourth ever album.

The band admit their love for improvisation (is there any jazz outfit who don't like it?) but that their sound changes constantly and "balances between fury and melancholy, recently leaning towards trance rhythms and synths". After the first two tracks I was already sold: Nowe płuca (translating to "New Lungs") present a perfect riff (but played on a trumpet, I think) that makes the track an instant hit while Bezdech ("Apnea")'s finish is... just pure post-rock. Sorry to keep coming back to the comparison with the guitar-based genre, but this is where I feel comfortable in. I'm not trying to offend anyone.

Although it is not a norm for me, I prefer the livelier, more energetic fragments of the album. The more self-reflecting parts played with a saxophone (I think) are definitely not my cup of tea. Still though, I am excited by this album more than I could have guessed.

Reckless Things costs 7 EUR (29 PLN). 

Check: Nowe płuca

Country: Poland

Genre: post-rocky jazz

Label: Audio Cave

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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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Wilson Trouvé - One Life (2025)

The Belgium-based artist, Wilson Trouvé, released an album filled with beautiful soundscapes of intimate and dramatic music, that has all the features of a movie score, the positive and negative ones.

he artist created the album as a "hypothetical film score or documentary on human life and existence" and the structure made of short tracks is meant to reflect the structure of human lives that are, in reality, made of short moments. Those moments are constructed with the help of a range of live instruments, making the whole album feel very close to the audience and especially immersive. I love the music and while I appreciate the idea behind it, I'm not a fan of movie scores, precisely because of what is captured here: the tracks are, basically, too short. I'd love to hear the director's cut of this album!

One Life costs 8.5 EUR (7 GBP).

Check: Day 1

Country: Belgium

Genre: neoclassical soundscape

Label: Bigo and Twigetti

Wilson Trouvé & Wil Bolton - Escape (2021)

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Solkyri - Cranebrook (2025)

The Australian post-rock icons decided to change what we know them of and instead of the melodic guitar-based music, on their new album they put the weight on the minimal but meaningful atmosphere, making Cranebrook sounding more like an instrumental ambient release.

Let's quote the band themselves: "we made something different. It’s slow, at times it’s really slow, but it allows a moment of reflection, a chance to stand still and importantly, rest". And so the tracks are quiet, acoustic, making me think of a slow Sunday somewhere in the country side drowning in sunlight. The acoustic guitar, piano keys and violins make the sound carefree and filled with light which interestingly contrasts the cover art which looks like the band wanted to show how they destroyed the concept of the previous album, Mount Pleasant. Instead of the violent destruction, however, the change seems to be smoother. I'd think of it as a house slowly devoured by the lush green than crumbled from some disastrous blows.

Anyway, the change is clear. "This is a brave leap, but it is one that we are proud to take" add the band members and I'm curious to see if that's the direction they will go in the future as well. I'd be very happy if the answer is yes.

Cranebrook costs 6 EUR (10 AUD).

Check: I Guess I'll Be Leaving Now

Country: Australia

Genre: instrumental ambient

Solkyri - Mount Pleasant (2020)

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Julien Demoulin - A Trial of Distances (2025)

There is something special in airy soundscapes that are enriched with sounds of live instruments, especially when the instruments are not that obvious. This is exactly the case with the new album from the French artist Julien Demoulin, who created a dream with a twist.

As the label states, the release provides us with "emotional themes, deep chords of eerie synths and melancholic drones" with inclusion of "lovely brass sounds of trumpet, trombone and flugelhorn, provided by Kelly O'Donohue". The trumpets are really not something I envision in the reverb-filled, ethereal form, quite frankly I seldom envision them in any form. But those soundscapes work so well, I can't deny it. So, without any denying at all, let's sink into the beautifully dense ambient sounds.

Just to mention everything, the album includes also three remixes by some well-known names in the soundscaping world, including our very own How To Disappear Completely from Poland.

A Trial of Distances costs 7 EUR.

Check: A Trial Of Distances Pt.3

Country: France

Genre: brass instruments soundscapes

Label: sound in silence

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Hollie Kenniff - For Forever (2024)

Hollie Kenniff, half of the Mint Julep duo, creates ambient music as a solo musician. The depth of this soft and airy electronica is unfathomed, encompassing both beauty and mystery in its abyss.

Piano keys like flower petals, synthy sounds like a delicate wind and then, there's the background of the compositions: deep, multi-layered, dark. This makes me think of a meadow early in the morning: the traces of the incoming day on the vast canvas of the night that is still close enough to be a little scary. Emotions. As the label describes the album, it "delivers miles of endless bliss" and that's very true. I love it.

For Forever costs 12 USD.

Check: Surface

Country: Canada/US

Genre: multi-layered ambient

Label: Nettwerk Music Group

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Carlos Ferreira - Dust Inside the Light (2024)

There's a few ambient artist who I find consistently inspiring and the Brazilian Carlos Ferreira is one of them as his new album (19th I think in the last five years) is at least just as good as the ones I know. The dreamy, lively but melancholic vibes are what draw me to his music.

This liveliness of the little sounds dancing around you, but never stay long enough to be encapsulated and studied, tons of things going around you so fast that feel weightless, this is the kind of experience I seek in Ferreira's music and I'm never disappointed. The December album  brings it all once again so I can enjoy the ethereal ambient vibes as long as I want. Especially that the release features his compatriot Rita Zart and two additional remixes, making it a beautiful journey into the dreamy soundscapes.

Dust Inside the Light costs 5.20 EUR.

Check: Dissolving the Self

Country: Brazil

Genre: lively ambient

Label: Archives 

Carlos Ferreira & Ki Oni - A Hundred Ways of Escaping (2022)

Carlos Ferreira & Almanacs - La Deriva (2021)

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Bartosz Dziadosz - Peace (2023)

Bartosz Dziadosz is better known as pleq, but this time he released his new album under his birth name. And the results are particularly interesting both thanks to the form of the music and the atmosphere that Peace is filled with.

Perhaps the artist chose to use his own name to underline the theme of the album which is the tragic war that Russia started in Ukraine and the longing for the title's peace. Interestingly enough, the album was released by the formerly Russian label DRONARIVM, making it clear that at least some of this country's citizen feel the same about the war. The music here is an extremely ethereal take on meditative and moody ambient-like neoclassical soundscapes. It's also fairly diverse genre-wise, but the overall results are clearly mesmerizing in the beauty of the neoclassic elements and experimentally interesting.

Peace costs 5 EUR.

Check: GABI

Country: Poland

Genre: experimental dreamscape

Label: DRONARIVM

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Battlestations - Memoirs of Once (2023)

As you can already tell, I'm a big fan of this mysterious project from Brussels. Their music can be called many things but orchestral ambient is probably the most interesting one of them. Their new take on the curious music is called Memoir of Once.

The Belgian artist(s) combine various genres into one coherent soundscape. There are long fragments of ambient beauty that slowly but surely becomes louder and louder until it reaches the level of almost-post-rock music. But there are also bits and pieces of dark ambient and sacral ambient (so great in The Disappeared) as well as full-blown electronica and neoclassicism. The whole thing is like a mystery for the audience to uncover bit by bit, note by note. This music has a lot of focus-inducing and self-reflective abilities, but it definitely can be actively enjoyed as well.

Memoirs of Once costs 7 EUR.

Battlestations - Inform (2020)

Battlestations - Vixit (2017)

Check: The Ghost of Lady Farewell

Country: Belgium

Genre: sacral ambient

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Aphir - The Halo Is Shapeless (2023)

Becki Whitton aka Aphir is an Australian artist whom I remember from the brilliant 2020 album called Republic of Paradise. This year's The Halo Is Shapeless is already her 6th release and it is filled with super airy, vocal-centered dreamy compositions.

This is no exaggeration: there's barely any sound on the album that isn't Whitton's angelic voice. As the label states, there are two modes the artist works in: "intricate and often dark experimental pop, and lush choral works" and so the new album definitely represents the second one. While working on the album, Whitton contemplated cataclysm and devastating events that can happen in one's life, but the compositions on the album don't have anything from the hopeless nihilism, instead, "they’re kind of like a soothing voice leading you through a change of state": beautiful and giving hope.

The compositions can sometimes undergo some glitchy, nervous treatment, but it's very rare. This album was designed to calm your nerves and offer a soundtrack for the process of self-reflection.

The Halo Is Shapeless costs 7.5 EUR (12 AUD).

Check: A Grassy Road

Country: Australia

Genre: vocal-oriented dreamscape

Label: Art As Catharsis

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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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Bad Pritt - Debris (2023)

The Italian artist appeared already on my blog, beck in 2018 with this self-titled album. It's the highest time to mention him again as the music on his new album, Debris, should make a lasting impression on anyone.

The musician uses various means to create his gloomy, unnerving soundscapes. The neoclassical bits in his compositions can be equally beautiful and nerve-wrecking (as they are in February 6th). The deep industrial electronica surprises the audience from time to time with the clear bass lines. The overwhelming noise that can bring madness and make you lose all the peace in your soul. Everything here is intense and I feel like this is where the "cinematic" part of Bad Pritt's music description comes to place: there's no cinematic grandeur here, but a lot of emotions and very cinematic way of expressing them. I would love to see the movie for which this would be a good soundtrack.

Debris costs 7 EUR.

Bad Pritt - Bad Pritt (2018)

Check: September 27th

Country: Italy

Genre: cinematic neoclassical

Label: Shyrec

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Dream Field 209 - Fading (2023)

Adam Boehm from Wisconsin makes his music as Dream Field 209 and his cozy and atmospheric dreamy ambient has this something that draws attention of the audience, as proved by his new album called Fading.

It seems that Boehm is extremely hard-working as this is his 3rd (!) album this year already. I have not listened to all of them, but I can say that Fading includes some particularly mesmerizing music. The artist doesn't use vocals but, regardless, dream pop is the best way to describe those oneiric, hazy and beautiful soundscapes. They are all about subtle synth noise and guitar-based, simple but pretty melodies that are sometimes closer ambient and sometimes closer to acoustic bedroom pop. The longer the album goes, the more droney the compositions become and it ends with the faintest dronescape in Iced Coffee and Lavender Clouds. This means that the album delivers what its title promised: the fading of music that feels like the year that slowly turns into the stillness of winter. 

Fading costs 5 USD.

Check: Shirakawa Snowfall

Country: Wisconsin, US

Genre: dreamy soundscapes

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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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