May brought a wave of understated brilliance from across the electronic spectrum. Ambient artists continued to push restraint into new territory, while collaborations blurred genre lines in quietly surprising ways. From Jenny Hval’s spectral closing piece to Conna Haraway’s tense, tactile soundscapes, these tracks favoured texture, tone and mood over obvious structure. There were moments of beauty, unease and stillness, sometimes all at once.
Here are the best new ambient tracks we kept coming back to in May.
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18 DAYS – Valley Of Yusa
18 DAYS is a London-based ambient project quietly putting out some beautifully textured work. “Valley Of Yusa” is a highlight from their recent album 子孫 (Shison). Slow-moving, soft-edged and quietly affecting, it’s the kind of track that feels like it’s barely there until you realise you’ve been sitting in it for ten minutes, not wanting it to end. The whole album’s on Bandcamp if you want more of that mood.
Romance – End Titles
“End Titles” closes out Love Is Colder Than Death, the latest release from Romance, an anonymous project known for pairing faded grandeur with slow, cinematic melancholy. The track is short but evocative, leaning into warped strings and dusty reverb that feel lifted from a forgotten reel of film. Like the rest of the album, it plays with memory and mood in a way that’s both romantic and quietly unsettling.
Loscil – Candling
“Candling” is a slow burner from Lake Fire, the latest album by Loscil, aka Scott Morgan. Known for his patient, immersive sound design, Morgan leans into darker tones here. The track feels scorched and suspended, like smoke hanging in the air. Subtle shifts in texture suggest something quietly unraveling. It’s restrained but heavy with atmosphere, echoing the album’s themes of loss, resilience and natural cycles.
Jenny Hval – I want the end to sound like this
“I want the end to sound like this” is the final track on Jenny Hval’s 2024 album Iris Silver Mist. It’s an ambient piece with no vocals, built around soft, minimal synth textures. At just under three minutes, it acts more like a coda than a full composition, offering a quiet contrast to the more structured songs earlier in the album. It’s a subtle ending that reflects the album’s focus on memory, performance and disappearance.
Ben Frost – Permcat
“Permcat, Ки́їв” is a track from Ben Frost’s 2025 album Under Certain Light and Atmospheric Conditions. Built from recordings of his 2024 performance in Kyiv, the piece blends environmental sounds with dense, processed electronics. The album captures fragments from two years of touring and soundchecks, focusing on the blurred line between live performance and post-production. Frost is joined by Greg Kubacki (Car Bomb) and audiovisual artist Tarik Barri, with sound designer Carlos Boix contributing live recordings woven into the mix
William Tyler – Anima Hotel
This piece blends ambient textures with Tyler’s signature guitar work, drawing inspiration from Carl Jung’s concept of the anima, representing the unconscious feminine aspect within the male psyche. Tyler describes it as a love song to different people, imagined as guests in a remote airport motel awaiting rescheduled flights. The track reflects the album’s exploration of spirituality, philosophy, and the interplay between noise and harmony.
Conna Haraway – 1702
An 11-minute track from Conna Haraway’s 2025 album Spatial Fix. It blends ambient abstraction with rhythmic intensity, featuring a propulsive low end and crackling textures. The track incorporates field recordings captured during Haraway’s 2024 tour of Japan and Korea, contributing to its immersive quality.
Surgeon – Dying
Taken from Surgeon’s 2025 album Shell~Wave, released on Tresor. Unlike the album’s rhythm-driven pieces, this one is beatless and minimal, built around a mantra-like vocal loop and heavy reverb. It serves as the emotional centre of the record, offering a moment of stillness amid the surrounding intensity. The track reflects Anthony Child’s ongoing exploration of techno’s more introspective edges, blending ambient textures with dub-influenced production techniques.
The Vernon Spring – Under A Familiar Sun
The title track from The Vernon Spring’s 2025 album, the solo project of London-based composer Sam Beste. The piece is a short instrumental built around layered piano, field recordings and subtle electronic textures. It reflects the album’s themes of family, memory and moral responsibility, drawing on Beste’s background in jazz and experimental production. The track sits at the centre of a record that blends acoustic and electronic elements with spoken word and vocal collaborations.
Thom Yorke, Mark Pritchard – Ice Shelf
This is a slow, ambient piece that pairs Yorke’s processed vocals with Pritchard’s glacial synth textures. The track’s sparse arrangement and icy atmosphere reflect the album’s broader themes of isolation and environmental unease. Yorke’s lyric “standing solo on an ice shelf” reinforces the track’s stark mood. The album was developed remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Pritchard and Yorke exchanging demos and ideas online.
Kara-Lis Coverdale – Flickers In The Air Of Night
Combines swelling synth clusters with Anne Bourne’s cello, creating a texture that rises and swirls like steam from a hot spring. The track reflects the album’s exploration of emotional resonance and the interplay between electronic and acoustic elements. Coverdale’s compositions often draw from her background in classical music and her interest in the spiritual dimensions of sound.
Puma Blue – elders
“elders” opens Puma Blue’s 2025 album extchamber with a hushed, ambient tone. Inspired by Brian Weiss’s Many Lives, Many Masters and the film adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, the track is built from sounds recorded in his girlfriend’s car, creating a lo-fi, meditative atmosphere. It sets the stage for an album that leans into ambient textures and introspective themes.
Jasmine Wood, Pavel Milyakov – VI (Family)
An 8-minute ambient-techno piece by Jasmine Wood and Pavel Milyakov, released as part of their collaborative double single VI & VII. The track reimagines material from Wood’s 2024 debut Piano Reverb, with Milyakov (aka Buttechno) introducing subtle rhythmic elements and atmospheric textures. Recorded in a vaulted church, the piece blends acoustic resonance with electronic processing, resulting in a meditative and immersive soundscape.
Michiru Aoyama – douretu
What sets Aoyama apart is his extraordinary commitment to releasing a new album every single day since late 2021, a routine he compares to brushing his teeth. Each album typically comprises eight short ambient pieces, crafted using guitar or synths processed through effects. This disciplined approach has cultivated a substantial online following, with his music frequently appearing on ambient and lo-fi playlists. “douretu” exemplifies his consistent, meditative output.
Ann Annie – Reprise
“Reprise” is a standalone single by Portland-based ambient composer Ann Annie. The track reflects on past ideas and memories, drawing inspiration from artists like Claude Debussy and Erik Satie. It features layered piano and subtle electronic textures, characteristic of Ann Annie’s ambient folk style.
