Dreamhouse by the Ocean: An Ambient Music Collection ~ August 2025
Welcome to the second edition of our new series, Dreamhouse by the Ocean, where I hand-select some of my favorite ambient music releases from my travels through the internet. đ
Featuring: Astropilot, Eglerion, Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka, KENJI KIHARA, perila, Tom Hall, Lee Hannah, Buried Marie & Unusual Cosmic Process. Consider supporting these artists if you can on Bandcamp!
This edition features; a soundscape that will make you feel like you are a digital signal travelling through a computer; a track that sounds like plays through the dust filled, crimson halls of a Victorian house that has been more or less abandoned; a track that has some Wildlife Analysis (Boards of Canada) vibes; a soundscape that will make you think of The X-Files; a track that will make you feel like you are floating on an interstellar cloud and more!
We have added these to the official Dreamhouse by the Ocean playlist here. If you have an ambient track you would like to submit to me for the next edition, or you have a recommendation, please email me at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com. I would love to hear from you!
Dreamhouse by the Ocean: An Ambient Music Collection
Reprise - Lee Hannah
Taken from the album FĂoruisce, from librarian and sound artist Lee Hannah (with all proceeds being donated to causes amplified by Friends of Palestine).
FĂoruisce invites you to slow down, to listen, it deals with ephemeral moments that pass, unnoticed, and unseen, in overlooked corners of the world. Reprise is the final track on the album; beginning with a lush, natural soundscape, with a bell-like instrument in the distance, that reminded me of those in Wildlife Analysis, the opening track of Boards of Canadaâs Music Has the Right To Children.
It includes a memo from American ethnographer and professor Kristen R. Ghodsee, that urges the importance of caring for and nurturing the personal relationships in your life, of being there for the people you love, that this is crucially important political work. The voice memo is wrapped up in a shimmering, slightly phantasmagoric bed of instruments, combined with a field recording of a landscape rich and alive with nature - Reprise is a gap, a place that allows you to reflect, the place in which we come back to ourselves - the place we must keep alive.
Connect with Lee Hannah
Bandcamp / You΀ube / Spotify / Instagram / X
null - Tom Hall
Taken from the album Trip Computer, this has some of the best sound design I have ever heard on a commercial release. The artist, interestingly (amongst other very impressive accomplishments) previously developed custom software for Nine Inch Nails.
null will make you feel like you are a digital signal travelling inside a computer, the rhythmic metallic ringing inducing the sensation of travelling through the motherboard, the other sounds feel like the other inner workings of the computer in the background. I listen to a lot of music, but I can quite easily say that I have never heard anything quite like this. Over three quarters of the way through, heavenly pads descend to meet your ears, like you are almost at your destination, in digital paradise.
Connect with Tom Hall
Website / Facebook / Bandcamp / Spotify / X / Instagram
A Walk Along the Foam - Astropilot
This is taken from the EP The Path of Sea and Sky, by Ukraine-based composer Astropilot, which you can listen to or purchase in full here.
This rises to your ears on a wave of pure bliss; combining the sounds of the shoreline with a warm bed of instrumentation that rises and falls, always in motion, like the sea itself. Some of the synths glimmer, ever so slightly, like the light on the waves, or the rockpools on the beach nearby that are filled with marine life. There are some bowed strings and woodwinds in this, which summon the sense of awe experienced when looking at the vast beauty of the sea.
Connect with Astropilot
Facebook / Bandcamp / Spotify / X / Instagram
Connect with Echoes in the Valley
Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram
i stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at me - Eglerion
This is taken from the new EP The Abyss Stares Back, by Dutch artist Eglerion.
This is hypnotic, deeply uneasy, and would not be out of place in the world of The X-Files. Picture a silent, industrial town at night, where the night-time mist is turned green by the streetlights, a place that harbours a secret that lies in the shadows and damp of the subterranean world of the city.
Connect with Eglerion
Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram
Connect with Valley View Records
Website / Bandcamp / Facebook / Instagram
Hiraeth - Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka
Taken from the album Hiraeth (which you can purchase here), in which all of the recordings were made on a Nagra Tape Machine in the fields of Sokolowsko, Poland. Something about the beautiful, surreal nature of the artwork for this made me think of the color scheme of Spink and Forcibleâs theatre performance in the Other World, from the movie Coraline.
Hiraeth is a Welsh word, one that does not have an exact translation in English (you can read more about that here if you would like to learn more). It opens with the gentle sounds of water, with some distant birdsong, with melodies so beautiful that they feel like they are from a fairy-tale; these being fused with gentle hypnotizing vocals that float through the meadows of the soundscape. This is entrancing, and would not be out of place in the surreal, mysterious world of Picnic At Hanging Rock.
Connect with Antonina Nowacka
Website / Facebook / Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram
Connect with Sofie Birch
Website / Facebook / Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram
Moonlight Serenade - Unusual Cosmic Process
This is transcendent. This will make you feel like you are floating, suspended on an Interstellar cloud, taking in the full glow and wonder of the cosmos. I would recommend watching the Netflix documentary Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine first, then putting on headphones and listening to this, letting it sweep you away into the kaleidoscopic beauty of the sky and beyond.
Connect with Unusual Cosmic Process
Spotify / Instagram
Connect with Valley View Records
Website / Bandcamp / Facebook / Instagram
Winds of Eternity - KENJI KIHARA
This feels like a portal to another realm in a science fiction movie that has a lot of indoor botanical gardens; the shades of blue and green in the artwork being woven into the texture of the music.
It also feels like the opening music to a spiritual VHS tape from the 1970s; this is wonderful.
Connect with KENJI KIHARA
Website / Instagram
Connect with Constellation Tatsu
Website / Instagram / X
lava - perila
I am not sure if paranormal ambient is a genre; but this is definitely how I would describe the bewitching sonic world of artist perila.
Lava opens with phantasmagoric textures blended with ghostly vocals, building and morphing into something that exists deep within the shadows. Taken from the album omnis festinatio ex parte diaboli est (OUEST081), which you can purchase here.
Connect with perila
Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram
Connect with West Mineral Ltd.
Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram / X
The Ghost You Will Be I - Buried Marie
The opening song of the album The Ghost You Will Be, feels like plumes of dust are coming off the ambient soundscape, making it feel like it is playing through the halls of an ornate, more or less abandoned Victorian house in the hills.
This brings to mind deep crimson shades, velvet, piles of books, lace, sunset, memory, and deep melancholy. I recommend listening to the whole album.
Connect with Buried Marie
Instagram / Bandcamp
Spotify Playlist
About Eimear O Sullivan
Eimear Ann O Sullivan is a multi-genre music producer, audio engineer and vocalist. After receiving a Masters in Music Technology from the CIT Cork School of Music, she went on to operate as a producer under the name Blakkheart. Her releases have received critical acclaim from Ireland's biggest music publications, such as District Magazine and Nialler9, alongside receiving heavy commercial radio airplay. She currently works in Cork recording studio Flashpoint CC. Previous clients of hers include the likes of Comedy Centralâs Dragony Aunt star Candy Warhol, rapper Darce and Outsider YP. (Photo credit @Fabian Boros)
Contact Eimear O Sullivan at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com
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