Dreamhouse by the Ocean: Best New Ambient Music - April 2026
Dreamhouse by the Ocean is a series where I hand-select some of the best new ambient music.
Featuring Ah! Kosmos & Hainbach, Gafael, Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri, Roi Becker, Isik Kural, Brannan Lane, The Void Wanderer, Eiler Strange, NIMF, and alyzea.
This edition features; a piece that sounds like a ghost rising from the wooden floorboards of an abandoned house in a plume of dust; a Frutiger Aero adjacent track that sounds like an azure blue dreamscape with kaleidoscopic bubbles in the air; a soundscape that sounds as though it was created using a forbidden spell in a thatch cottage deep within the forest; a bewitching track that pays homage to the beauty of the Welsh coastline; a warm glowing track that will be like a balm to your nervous system; a piece that sounds like it is floating to your ears across the deserts of unfamiliar, slightly alien plains; and more!
Dreamhouse by the Ocean: An Ambient Music Collection
Ah! Kosmos & Hainbach - As if a Phantom
This sounds like a ghost rising from the wooden floorboards of an abandoned house in a plume of dust.
‘As if a Phantom’ is taken from the upcoming album ‘Gentle Hum’ from Berlin-based electronic music artists Ah! Kosmos and Hainbach, which sees the artists “work with non-musical instruments capable of creating experimental music to haunting and melancholic effect”(via Bandcamp).
This is a tapestry of melancholy and memory; this being present in the twinkling sounds shimmering underneath the plush textures of the opening (like purple jewels inside an old ballerina music box), the rushes of air that sound like the ocean breeze bursting in through the window, and the eerie, reverbed, siren-like sounds in the distance.
The fact that the artists used non-musical instruments as part of this creation makes for a strange and bewitching sonic landscape. This is a testament to going to abandoned attics and making a symphony out of what you find there.
Connect with Hainbach
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Connect with Ah! Kosmos
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alyzea - dream island
This embodies the euphoria and hope that came from being on the computer in the 2000s, a core element of the Frutiger Aero aesthetic and vibe (think Windows 95, the Palmolive aquarium soap). This is taken from the album of the same name, which opens on a song called ‘Welcome’, which sounds like the menu music of an aquatic 00s PC game, fully immersing you into this experience.
‘Dream Island’ is just divine, the piano melody being reminiscent of Robert Miles’ 1995 hit ‘Children’, all of which flows over an azure blue dreamscape with kaleidoscopic bubbles in the air. There is something magical within this deep blue world - one that will capture your imagination and make you feel alive.
Connect with alyzea
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NIMF - Solar Excess Sacrificial Ecstasies (Willie O' Winsbury, Sumer is icumen in)
This twists and morphs into a wonderfully strange, dark delight - the opening of the song almost tricks you into thinking that you are simply listening to a beautifully designed soundscape of natural landscapes, when suddenly, from the shadows, it transforms into something no longer familiar, something bizarre, something strange - something powerful and enchanting.
Dublin-based artist NIMF has created something new here - a piece of music that feels like it has been plucked from the landscape of an ancient fairy tale, something that was created using a forbidden spell in a thatch cottage deep within the forest. This is taken from the artist’s new album ‘Sirenoscape’ (of note, I previously covered one of the other songs from this in a recent edition of (A Sunlit Walk in The Underground Forest), however, I knew I had to include the opening song ‘Solar Excess Sacrificial Ecstasies (Willie O' Winsbury, Sumer is icumen in’ in this edition of Dreamhouse by the Ocean.
The ornate soundscape of this track submerges you into its witchy world - one that you will revisit time and time again.
Connect with NIMF
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Brannan Lane - Dreamcatcher
I was exhausted and a bit on edge the first time I listened to this - and it was like a balm to my nervous system.
‘Dreamcatcher’ is taken from the ambient EP ‘Full Moon Over Monument Valley’, an album which was “inspired by the vast beauty of the Southwest. Using field recordings and synthesizers, it captures the glow of moonlit skies, the rise of sun over sandstone buttes, and the whispers of desert winds.”
The warm glow of the pads will lull you into a state of pure transcendence and peace, the interwoven field recordings deeply soothing. This ambient track provides a place for you to go, any time, any place, to find tranquility.
Connect with Brannan Lane
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Connect with Valley View Records
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Gafael - Submerge 1
This is the opening track from the album ‘Syren’, where the artist’s “extensive field recording archive of the waters of northern Wales are iteratively processed into hazy, extended chords” (via Bandcamp).
A warm soundscape rises to your ears, like an ocean wave breaking over your face in a dream. Synths playing dub adjacent pads shimmer at the very edges of your ears, enticing you to dig deeper into this lucious sonic world, like a rock pool whose murky depths are submerged underneath moss and seaweed. Interestingly, this album is about the beauty of the Welsh coastline (if you want to see this beauty for yourself, watch the TV show ‘Under Salt Marsh’), and my first thought on listening to this and without knowing that, was that it reminded me of the all-consuming, awe-inspiring natural wonders of this world.
Connect with Gafael
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Isik Kural - The Childish Tendency to Speak of Events as Coincidences
I was clouded in despair when listening to this for the first time, mostly as a result of the sheer struggle it takes to simply survive and scrape by in this world. ‘The Childish Tendency to Speak of Events as Coincidences’ made me feel like I was in a room with tulle curtains and pastel walls, sitting on a fluffy lavender carpet, surrounded by twinkling objects. This song sounds like a magical, secret room from childhood, filling you with joy and wonder.
Listen to the album ‘As Flurries’ here.
Connect with Isik Kural
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In the Eastern Wild - Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri
This is taken from the album ‘Where Light Pauses in the Silence of the Sun’ (due for release on June 26, 2026), the title alone inducing a sensation of stillness within you.
These pieces were actually recorded and performed live, using a 1970s mixing console and microphones. ‘In the Eastern Wild’ sounds like it is floating to your ears across the deserts of unfamiliar, slightly alien plains, where you stand, bewitched by its shimmering, unknowable beauty. It rises and falls like the wind, and like the landscape itself - this is one to explore the sands of your imagination to.
Connect with Abul Mogard
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Connect with Rafael Anton Irisarri
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Roi Becker - Dust and Fire
This is taken from ‘Azathoth’, an album that was “made from Live music performance created in collaboration and for the choreography by Omer Keinan, Raz Mantel, Máté Asbót, Susanna Ylikoski for the piece.” (via Bandcamp).
The sonic world of ‘Dust and Fire’ is dissonant yet deeply alluring, existing someplace where reality as you know it flickers phantasmagorically. Things don’t behave as they should within this realm; it is almost as though one is submerged within a dream. Every so often, a sound comes in, like something morphing through a wall as though coming from another dimension.
Connect with Roi Becker
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The Void Wanderer feat. Eiler Strange - Silent Streets
There is something liminal and eerie about The Void Wanderer’s music. And yet, underneath the murky soundscapes, lies something peaceful. ‘Silent Streets’ sounds like it comes to your ears from a desolate, sulfurous, mist-covered landscape; a landscape that experienced some form of near-total devastation, but still lives on, albeit in skeletal form, a marvel of deeply strange and unsettling beauty.
Connect with The Void Wanderer
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Connect with Cryo Chamber
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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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