Finals season is approaching, which means numerous all-nighters, heavy study sessions and a lot of caffeine. For many students, it also means finding the right study playlist to help you get through those long hours.
I have always gravitated towards ambient music during early mornings, late nights and when I study; I believe there is no better music to study to than ambient music. In the spirit of finals season creeping up, here are six ambient albums I think would improve your study sessions.
“The Pearl” by Harold Budd and Brian Eno (1984)
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Brian Eno and Harold Budd are considered pioneers of the ambient genre. Their collaborative talent is showcased best on 1984’s “The Pearl,” a slow and swirling record marked by Budd’s free-spirited piano work and Eno’s more electronic tendencies, which gently push the record forward.
What differentiates this record from Budd and Eno’s other collaborative efforts is the heavy inclusion of nature sounds, which lend “The Pearl” a soft and ethereal atmosphere that is perfect for background listening. It is effortlessly calming and is the perfect album for early morning coffee and late-night studying.
My standout tracks are “A Stream With Bright Fish,” which I can best describe as sounding like a Monet painting and “Lost in the Humming Air,” a sparse and light song that seems to float in and out of existence at times. If you enjoyed “The Pearl,” I would recommend checking out Eno and Budd’s other collaborative works, including “Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror” or Budd’s collaborative album with the Cocteau Twins, “The Moon and the Melodies.”
“Après Coup” by Laurie Torres
Courtesy of Laurie Torres’s Bandcamp
On the flip side of the history of ambient music is this 2025 release by Montreal-based musician and composer Laurie Torres. “Après Coup” is a stunning collection of improvisational piano with hints of jazz and synthesizer work spotted throughout. It is sentimental without being too heavy, emotional without melodrama or fuss and contains a lightness of spirit that is perfect for both active and background listening.
Torres, on her Bandcamp page, encapsulates the energy of this album perfectly, saying she “had an urge to use creativity as a sort of resting place, a place where things can unfold slowly and take time to reveal themselves.”
Standout tracks for me are “Lisière,” a poignant piano piece with these soft supporting bass and string sections that really make it a uniquely beautiful song from this album and “Exit,” the album’s final track, which is made distinct by these jazzy drums in the background that float behind Torres’s exceptional piano improvisation. It is a fitting last song that sounds like the dawn, perfect to finish the all-nighters that are creeping around the corner. If you enjoyed this album, I suggest checking out Elijah Fox’s “City in the Sky.”
Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978)
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As I mentioned, Brian Eno knows how to execute a wonderfully beautiful ambient sound. He isn’t called “The Father of Ambient” for nothing, as his 1978 album “Ambient 1: Music for Airports” is the album that first coined the term “ambient music.” This is an album that feels like traveling, like the buzz of excitement when you first arrive at the airport at 5 a.m., no matter how groggy you might be.
This is my preferred road trip album, preferred train ride album and my preferred plane flight album. It also happens to be a phenomenal studying album due to its atmospheric quality and lightness of sound.
“Ambient music is intended to induce calm and a space to think. Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting,” Eno said.
That is what makes ambient music so good for studying. It is crafted, at least in its earliest inceptions, to act almost as lighting and decoration do for a room– it is supposed to enhance a room’s atmosphere, not demand attention. “Ambient 1: Music for Airports” is trying to do that for airports but works just as well for wherever you’re studying.
The standout track is the first one, “1/1,” a 17-minute journey through melody and tone that can help you decompress and focus on whatever task you need to finish, whether that be cramming material or finishing an essay that is due at 11:59 p.m. If you enjoyed this record, I would recommend Eno’s “Apollo”.
“Minecraft – Volume Alpha” by C418 (2011)
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This is the record that requires the least introduction out of any on this list. This is perhaps the best-known ambient record ever, so much so that in 2025, it was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, and/or aesthetically significant.”
The proliferation of Minecraft through popular culture means that the songs crafted for the video game are instantly recognizable, but don’t let the album’s connection to the video game fool you. “Minecraft – Volume Alpha” is a phenomenal album in its own right.
With a more upbeat, youth-oriented sound, listening to the album might be bittersweet if you grew up playing Minecraft, but if you can get past that pang of nostalgia, this is a great album to study. It’s tranquil without being dull and upbeat without asking for your full attention.
The standout tracks for me are “Sweden,” an instantly recognizable piano track, “Subwoofer Lullaby,” which showcases the album’s more electronic tendencies and “Moog City,” a track that highlights the soundtrack’s more upbeat, cinematic sides. If you enjoy this album, check out C418’s second album for Minecraft, “Minecraft – Volume Beta.”
“Selected Ambient Works Volume II” by Aphex Twin (1994)
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This was the hardest album to pick for this list, because deciding between Aphex Twin’s best albums is like deciding which child is your favorite. If I had to pick, 1994’s “Selected Ambient Works Volume II” would be my best bet.
Besides Brian Eno, nobody has had a more marked influence on the genre than Richard David James (Aphex Twin), and that influence is best showcased here. The popularity of electronic music in the 90s led to ambient artists fully adopting an electronic-based sound, influenced by the rise of sister genres such as downtempo and trip-hop. That sound can be heard on this record, where synth almost exclusively makes up the sonic content.
For me, Aphex Twin’s music sounds more futuristic than any other artist, simply because his music seems to have no discernible historical foundation. It floats atop all the genres it pulls from and evokes no specific imagery when I listen to it. It just sounds like emotion– like he was able to extract a certain feeling and manifest it into music. That’s what makes it such a good study record; it has very little chance to remind you of anything specific, only the feeling that you get when you listen to it. It does get a little dark and experimental at times (“#4” and “#5” never fail to scare me).
The standout tracks for me are “#3” and “#19,” ethereal, flowy tracks that both come on at least once for me every time I study for an extended period of time. If you enjoy this album, I would recommend checking out Aphex Twin’s other albums, like “Selected Ambient Works 85-92” and “Drukqs.”
“instrumentals” by Adrianne Lenker (2020)
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The polar opposite of Aphex Twin’s stark, electronic album is Adrianne Lenker’s “instrumentals,” an acoustic album filled with windchimes and birdsong. A sister album to Lenker’s critically acclaimed “songs,” “instrumentals” is only two songs and 37 minutes long, but in that runtime, she succeeds in lowering my blood pressure and focusing my brainpower in a way very few records can.
Recorded in Western Massachusetts after the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled her band Big Thief’s tour, “instrumentals” is an improvisational, nature-oriented album. It asks its listener to forget the outside world awhile and immerse themselves in the soundscapes of the one-room cabin where Lenker recorded these songs.
Few albums contain such transcendentalist spirit as Lenker’s “instrumentals,” and whenever the academic grind is stressing me out a little too much, I tend to throw on either of the two tracks on this album, each at least 16 minutes long, and by the end I am focused and ready to get back to work. If you enjoyed this album, I also recommend “Going Steady” by North Americans.
Francisco Agiurre-Ghiso can be reached at [email protected]
