Dreamhouse by the Ocean: An Ambient Music Collection ~ November 2025
Welcome to the Dreamhouse by the Ocean; a new series where I explore the internet for my favourite ambient music releases.
Featuring: Ambient2k, Oneohtrix Point Never, The Void Wanderer, Apocryphos, Pœna Sensus, Dreamfibre, Steve Roach, Erik Wollo, Brannan Lane, The Silent Tide, Ancient Astronaut, Farmer Glitch, Ida Urd & Ingri Høyland.
This edition features; a soundscape that will make you feel like you are in Moominland during a snowstorm, safe within the warm orange glow of your house; an ambient track that sounds like the kaleidoscopic magic of Old Hollywood movies; a shimmering, sentient soundscape flavored with bleeps and bloops that feels like an audio artefact from something slightly alien; a soundscape that will induce a Lovecraftian sense of terror, and make you feel like you are in the presence of something ancient, wholly unfamiliar, and hostile; a track that will induce the sensation of the ocean roaring in your ears and the sun shimmering your skin; and more!
We have added these to the official Dreamhouse by the Ocean playlist here. This playlist also includes Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, GAS, Pauline Oliveros and more, to make you feel like you are floating in a house suspended above the ocean. If you have an ambient track you would like to submit to me for the next edition, please email me at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com.
Dreamhouse by the Ocean: An Ambient Music Collection
Chamber - Ida Urd & Ingri Høyland
Taken from the album ‘Duvet’; “The Danish/Norwegian duo of Ida Urd and Ingri Høyland believe that music is an extension of one’s immediate sensory environment [via Bandcamp]”.
This is interesting, as this morning I was reading ‘Songwriters on Songwriting’, where R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe mentions in an interview with Paul Zollo, that he really liked the industrial sonic world of a band from the early 1980s, as it sounded totally alien to him, because he had not lived in cities and experienced these noises. Then, one day, when he was sitting on the subway in New York, he suddenly realised, this is where this band and their sound is from - the subway ( I am paraphrasing, but this is the gist). The sounds of your environment do impact your music; and it plays a key role in your inspiration (see Ethel Cain’s take on this on her recent appearance on Popcast), and I love that both Ida Urd and Ingri Høyland wove this into their music, as it gives the soundscape a vibrant, embroidered feeling.
Chamber opens with lush, tape twisted strings and a high pitched noise glimmering at the peripheral (of note, everything was mixed through analog tape units), which gives it an otherworldly, muted quality, like when a blanket of snow covers everything, while a blizzard swirls around outside. This soundscape feels like it is coated in ice, but also warm, like you are experiencing the snowstorm from the orange candlelit warmth of your house (I am picturing the Moominhouse in the book ‘Moominland Midwinter’).
Connect with Ida Urd
Instagram / Spotify
Connect with Ingri Høyland
Website / Instagram / Bandcamp / Facebook
Connect with Balmat
Instagram / Bandcamp
Vint - Ambient2k
Taken from the album Ambient4k, this sounds like deep, velveteen purple, which gives it a witchy vibe; but also lending it the magical feeling you got in childhood while watching a kaleidoscopic old Hollywood movie (like ‘The Wizard of Oz’).
The instrument gently humming underneath the pads brings to mind the magic of 1971’s ‘Pure Imagination’ from ‘Charlie and The Chocolate Factory’. This is a soundscape that exists between memory and a dream. Ambient 2k is one of my favourite ambient artists at the moment.
I wrote about them in the first edition of this series.
Connect with Ambient2K
Instagram / Bandcamp / Youtube / Spotify
Apocryphos & Pœna Sensus - The Sigh of Archaic Tragedy
This induces a Lovecraftian sense of terror; the terror of something ancient and nameless, of something of a magnitude that our minds can barely comprehend. You are travelling at night, and have come upon an imposing building rising from the skyline; and although you are seeking shelter from the relentless cold and rain, you are aware that there is something hostile in its unfamiliarity.
The soundscape captures shadowy, eerie corners, where you sense something, but aren't sure fully what, while an ominous bell tolls in the distance, making you feel all the more alone and alien. If you really want to scare yourself on Halloween Night, turn off all the lights, and listen to this on headphones.
Connect with Poena Sensus
Facebook
Connect with Apocryphos
Facebook
Connect with Cryo Chamber
Bandcamp / Instagram / X / Facebook
Lifeworld - Oneohtrix Point Never
The music video for this opens like a kitsch 1970s horror movie; with a turreted, gothic mansion standing atop a cliff, a sequence where you become unsure if this is actually happening in the movie you are watching or if it is simply part of a dream sequence.
‘Lifeworld’ (taken from the upcoming album ‘Tranquilizer’, which you can pre-order here) opens with a warm pad sprinkled with sounds of differing textural varieties, not unlike an ocean wave picking up artefacts from the shore. There is a quality to this that reminds me of 2010s DIY electronic sampling, in which a song is made of many different sounds, yet still flows seamlessly as one. This teeters somewhere between a dreamscape and the abyss - the results being overwhelmingly beautiful.
Connect with Oneohtrix Point Never
Bandcamp / Website / Spotify / Instagram
Forgotten Shrine in the Mountains - The Void Wanderer
This is the opening track of the album ‘Life is Exhausting’ (released via label Cryo Chamber); in which the accompanying music video immediately drew me into its mountainous, foggy world.
This has the effect of making you feel at peace with the void; as mist and fog blows past the window in the mountainous isolated area you find yourself in. The music is gentle, contemplative, and cloaked in mystery; inviting you to unclench, and give up trying to control everything, and embrace rest and solitude, in this moment.
Connect with Cryo Chamber
Bandcamp / Instagram / X / Facebook
Dreamfibre - Lucid Skies
I enjoy aquatic Frutiger Aero adjacent music and visuals quite a lot - so the moment this was suggested by the Youtube algorithm, I clicked on it. Very impressively, the visuals for this were made by the artist, using Unreal Engine 5 and Da Vinci Resolve (it has long been a dream of mine to make 3D visualizations with these softwares; however, this is a hurdle I have still yet to overcome, so I still currently remain in the 2D arena).
The azure blues and Windows 95 shades of green in the visuals are saturated throughout the music; making you feel like you are in the 1990s and the future, simultaneously, fully at peace.
This is also a nice soundscape to listen to while walking around, as the shimmering sentience of the soundscape adds a depth and dimension to everything.
Connect with Dreamfibre
YouTube / Bandcamp / Instagram / X
Night Strands - Steve Roach & Erik Wollo
Taken from the album ‘The Road Eternal’, this sounds like the lush soundscape that unfolds underneath a shimmering, celestial night sky in the desert.
‘Night Strands’ induces the very specific sense of anticipation and wonder that you get at night, as you are awed by the sheer grandeur and wonder of this planet, and of being alive. The instruments sound like the winds blowing in the distance, and although you are somewhere unfamiliar, you feel right at home.
Connect with Steve Roach
Website / YouTube / Facebook / Instagram
Connect with Erik Wøllo
Spotify / Website / Instagram
Sunbeams in Slow Motion - Brannan Lane
This induces the sensation of the celestial warmth of the sun, of the roar of the ocean hitting your ears - as you watch the sun shimmer and dance on the waves, as you feel the whole encounter breathing life back into you.
This opulent soundscape feels transcendental, embodying one of my favourite aspects of ambient music; how it can transport you to a whole new landscape with its sonic world, and also add a new dimension to where you currently are. ‘Sunbeams in Slow Motion’ feels like a wall of heavenly sounds that have descended from the heavens.
Connect with Brannan Lane
Bandcamp / Spotify / Instagram
Wandering Mind - The Silent Tide & Ancient Astronaut
Taken from ‘Fleeting Moments’, this sounds like having a lucid dream and/or an out of body experience, where you are floating above the clouds, surrounded by the seemingly infinite blue of the skies; the world down below seeming like a miniature. This sounds like consciousness expanding, and it is deeply calming.
Connect with Ancient Astronaut
YouTube / Bluesky / Facebook / Instagram
Connect with The Silent Tide
Bandcamp / Instagram
Backing Masked - Farmer Glitch
This consists of two 30 minute soundscapes “designed for back-to-back listening & meditative hypostasis” [via Bandcamp]. The kitsch bell instrument that runs throughout reminds me of the break sound that would come on in between sections of an instructional cassette tape or CD.
The soundscape shimmers, kind of the ambient sounds of crickets and nature at night, the surreal bleeps and bloops that come in every so often make this feel slightly alien, like it an audio artefact from something we don’t fully understand as of yet.
Connect with Eastville Vending
Instagram
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 Central’s 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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