Ten ambient EPs from 2025

Even today, the ambient scene shows a living set of forms, capable of evolving not only through the genre's most iconic aesthetic, that of Stars of the Lid or Steve Roach, but also through its endless offshoots. More than a proper style, it's a concept that can virtually be applied to almost any artistic current. Placing the emphasis on overall texture, rather than on the single moment or melody, is the hallmark of a mindset that keeps finding heirs everywhere.

From the space music of Thom Brennan to the hushed drones of Celer, via the tape-loops of William Basinski and the dub dilations of Vladislav Delay, the ambient universe speaks through a multitude of voices. For over fifty years, from Brian Eno to the ambient techno of Wolfgang Voigt and beyond, this current has left its mark on contemporary music.

In 2025 the story has certainly not stopped, and it's not only the titans doing the talking. Setting aside the most talked-about names, an underbrush in constant ferment emerges. The music scene has moved away from the monumental kosmische concerts of Tangerine Dream, becoming, in ambient's case, an intimate experience: gathered in tiny spaces, grassroots associations putting forward today's underground, and above all platforms like Bandcamp.

Below, ten EPs that tell the story of a scene still in motion, accompanied by indicative scores meant to convey the breadth of this soundscape. But what emerges clearly is that, with its ever-contemplative stance, the ambient language never stops tracing the cracks in the world.

Blanket Swimming – Now As Ever

Thea Maloney is the mind behind Blanket Swimming, a project active for ten years now with an impressive catalogue of releases to its name. "Now As Ever" is the latest work by the US artist, who is also the founder of Asonu, an experimental netlabel poised between drone-laden weaves and field recordings. The record is essentially a drone loop stretched out over seventeen minutes; it's built through sound synthesis and samples of unintelligible choirs, diluted over time and repeated with a velvety touch. The shifts are microscopic, and you sink into it as if into ocean waters. A touch more care in the mixing might have helped — it's a bit murky — but something still surfaces from the depths. (6.5)

Bvdub – Colder Than Snow

Bvdub is one of those artists who have worked in the shadows for too long to still pass as a new name. The sound of the US producer is built on shades and echoes laid over rhythmic beds, lost between dub reverbs and faded memories. Away from the spotlight, the artist carries on with uneven results, here far removed from the dub techno that once defined him. "Colder Than Snow" is yet another release in a prolific career, made up of four tracks that swing between evocative flashes of insight and more harmless moments. The third movement stands out: spectral tones, a theatrical imagery that grabs you by the throat. The rest, unfortunately, struggles to come close. (6.0)

Demetrio Cecchitelli & Dominic Sambucco – Fuga & Discesa

Two tracks for what is little more than a single, but with an imprint dense with promise. Demetrio Cecchitelli and Dominic Sambucco are two young artists who find their balance in the union of instrumental language and acousmatic texture. Drawing inspiration from classical composition, "Fuga" unfolds in a counterpoint of winds, saxophone and electroacoustic manipulations, while "Discesa" stretches flute and prepared guitar over a sonic backdrop enriched with field recordings. A fine interweaving of synthetic and organic elements, which also converse through the manipulation itself, forming a duality that adds up to a coherent, expressive whole. (7.0)

Kirk – Eon

Polish outfit Kirk debuted back in 2011 with “Msza Święta W Brąswałdzie”, and since then their course has changed radically. Having abandoned the distorted claustrophobia of illbient, their direction has progressively brightened, arriving now at “Eon”, an unexpected opening after years of unease and obsession. The two tracks featured here play with electronics, trumpets and the duduk, a wind instrument from the Armenian tradition. The elements unfold into a solemn redemption, weaving post-minimalist lines with broad harmonic stasis: an evocative sonic architecture that, however, never quite finds full momentum. The steps are sure, even if the destination isn't yet fully in focus. (6.5)

Nurture – Ever

For some time now, Århus seems to have become one of the main hubs of the European underground. It's there that the Levain label took shape, by now one of the most reliable names in the underground electronic circuit. “Ever” contains a luminous ambient sprawl, ten minutes in which new age and trance merge in spiritual communion into an endless arpeggio that dissolves amid synthetic flashes. Nurture is an anonymous project expressing itself through space music of full-bodied delicacy, never merely evanescent, offspring of both ambient house and 1970s progressive electronic music, intense and never reduced to mere background: subtle, penetrating songwriting that leaves its mark. (8.0)

Psalm Star Electric – January

Kino Disk is one of the most interesting revelations of recent times. A Chicago label, it releases everything digitally as free downloads. Its visual aesthetic recalls that of Basic Channel, and its sonic identity is just as distinctive: a modern ambient dub, closer to glitch and IDM than to downtempo or chillout. Lost amid futuristic, hazy atmospheres, Psalm Star Electric is the label's new anonymous project, this time expressed across two tracks suspended between echoes and magnetic tape, like a Vladislav Delay or a Chain Reaction stripped of rhythm, save for the odd kick and bassline acting as a deep echo. It's dub techno, but played as if it were ambient for sleepless spirits. (7.5)

Samsuo – For The Beyond

Electronic music, even today, still thrives on netlabels. If in the 2000s there was Myspace, today there are new platforms shaping genuinely underground projects, and Samsuo is one of them. Released on Florina Cassettes, England's Samuel Samsuo, now the author of three albums, builds shy textures, where restrained, meditative pads intertwine with hiss, vinyl crackle and barely perceptible whispers, driven by the intent to explore his own emotions and find inner balance. “For The Beyond” is escapist music: like shutting yourself in your room, eyes closed, at three in the morning, letting yourself be carried away by an immaterial sonic flow. (7.0)

A duo based in Nantes, now on their second EP, armed with a handful of synthesizers, a mixer and an array of concrete sounds, Marina Damjanovic and Mathieu Steyer offer a meditative architecture with gentle trip-hop contours. Their strength lies in the ideas: gentle and velvety, in what plays out like eclectic lounge music for warm summer afternoons. It's an ambient sound that doesn't always owe a debt to the drone school, with half the record carried by circular, cadenced rhythms accompanied by Damjanovic's subdued spoken word. The limitation, perhaps, is a sonic identity still taking shape; but the project is young, and still has much to define. (6.0)

Undveld – Where Dreams Collapse

After a career spent among drones, ambient techno and field recordings, Lithuania's Undveld here moves through three contrasting episodes. The first pits cellos and synthetic strings against mantric ideas, but the result recalls certain post-rock experiments that have by now worn thin. The second episode instead recalls Rod Modell's latest effort, set in a wintry scene, blurred between faint resonances and natural crackle. Closing things out is a reflection that seems a good synthesis of the previous two. The result is a work of tormented emotion, with a sonic blend that doesn't always find the right form, especially in a less incisive opener that undermines its start. (5.5)

Uyu Uuu – Pacific

All that's known of Uyu Uuu is that it's a Russian project, perhaps originally from Yekaterinburg. “Pacific” is a ten-minute drone tension: a celestial mantra for lost souls. Laying its fabric over a hint of melody, it builds barely perceptible variations, subtle enough to make you wonder whether they're real or merely the product of the hypnosis of repetition. Delicate and elusive, its internal shifts are minimal, bordering on the static, but the loop erases time and opens up an escape from the world. The shedding of everyday unease translates into an instrumental fog, out of which a trio of instruments seems to emerge, entirely enveloped in a single dense, indistinct amalgam. (7.5)

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