Dark and moody music for writing on a deep, dark winter's night
Give me rainy, sonic soundscapes over sunny Lofi, at least, until spring.
If I look out of my home office window right now, there’s snow on the ground, the skeletal trees stand stark against the deep ultramarine night sky, and it’s barely six o’clock in the evening. It’s winter here in New England, with forty-odd days to go until spring. In the words of Douglas Adams’ character Bowerick Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, I feel that I have “entered the long dark teatime of the soul.”
You might think I need cheering up. Not a bit! In fact, I am currently listening to music that makes me feel even worse: music that amplifies the darkness, the cold, the isolated mood of living in a house that backs onto miles of woodland—and odd though that may seem, I’m enjoying it.
Recently, while writing my essay on Neuromancer in 2025, I stumbled upon Ambient Outpost, a YouTube channel filled to the brim with sci-fi-inspired undulating synthesizer soundscapes evocative of the accompanying AI-generated scenes of deserted brutalist concrete structures, abandoned cities, shattered control rooms, and empty spaceships. Ambient Outpost is the perfect musical accompaniment to writing in the deep of winter.
Over the past few weeks, I have been on a quest to find the best music to accompany me while I write during these dark winter months. Finding suitable music to listen to while working on design or illustration is easy-peasy; I have an array of go-to artists for those tasks, a playlist that shifts depending on my mood. Lately, I’ve been revisiting Björk—especially Homogenic (one of my all-time favorite albums)—as well as cycling through Kate Bush, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. All these artists are not only great musicians and songwriters but also creatively inspiring.
Yet, with the exception of Sakamoto, I can’t listen to any of this music while writing. It’s the singing, mostly; I find it distracting. I know writers who solve this problem by listening to music from artists who sing in different languages from their own. It’s not for me; if I want to listen to music while I write, it has to be instrumental, preferably ambient. It turns out there’s a lot of ambient music to choose from. Unfortunately, there’s very little of it I like.
Conversely, each long piece I’ve listened to from Ambient Outpost works perfectly. Each video—most are at least two hours long—features a thematic variation of soft, moody synthesizer soundscapes overlaid with environmental embellishments fitting the piece’s conceit; across various videos, I’ve heard computer beeps and clicks, voice chatter (clearly taken from air traffic control recordings), and natural environmental sounds: rain, wind, bird song, cicadas, and even the occasional dog bark in one of the desert “outposts” (I’ll save that one for summer). My particular winter favorites (so far) are ALONE: The Empty Outpost, ALONE: Dark Forest, and when I get tired of the rain, the snowy DARK Winter Outpost. Other playlists feature similar videos but without music, only the clicks of mechanical keyboards, while another features scenes from inside spaceships and space stations. I’m not so keen on the space videos; I find the chatter too prominent over the dull throbbing sound of the spacecraft. And I miss the rain.
My journey to Ambient Outpost–and other ambient channels like the very rain-heavy but far too Blade Runner-y SpaceWave—came after several failed attempts to find that lyric-less background soundscape that will keep me focused.
Over the years, I’ve returned time and again to Brian Eno, who somehow has found a winning formula for writing atmospheric ambient music that doesn’t become too monotonous, hardly an easy trick to pull off. But in an effort to expand my options, I’ve been working through Pitchfork’s 50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time playlist. After trying it a few times, I’ve come to the conclusion that I seem to like Brian Eno more than most ambient music—at least the music on Pitchfork’s playlist.
Classical music is another favorite that’s not quite right when writing. Many of the classical playlists I try feature music that I find too sleepy, too sentimental, or, in some cases, so explosively dramatic at unexpected moments that a sudden fortissimo feels like a jump scare. Film and video game scores have been a more reliable writing partner, but I’ve listened to Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’s soundtrack for The Social Network far too many times, and I need a break. Ditto Andrew Prahlow’s soundtrack for The Outer Wilds, which contrasts eerie soundscapes with melodic acoustic simplicity so well.
I have come to the realization that I don’t want to escape from the long, dark teatime of the soul—I want to embrace it. Just like I can’t imagine watching Severance when it’s 73 and sunny, neither can I drift along with a Café del Mar chill-out while writing on an icy, dark mid-winter night. That means no lo-fi of any kind, despite Ross’ best efforts to find a good station or playlist.
I much prefer the approach of Ambient Outpost, which has a unique style, the result of which is something deeply atmospheric, often strange, and sometimes weirdly tense and eerie. This hardly sounds ideal for background music. But somehow, it just works; the sound slides into the back of my mind and never intrudes on my concentration. It keeps me alert, providing just enough auditory texture to be interesting without competing with my thoughts.
As I am writing this essay, listening to Alone in the Empty Outpost in a dark room lit mainly by the light of my screen, I imagine myself sequestered away in a room within some immense, brooding Simon Stålenhag-like concrete structure deep in the woods, lost in concentration. In reality, I am in my warm house in Connecticut, and it’s snowing outside, not raining, but close enough—time for tea.