Sleep Ambient

Sleep ambient is functional ambient music composed specifically to be slept to: extremely slow, quiet and uneventful sound that masks environmental noise and eases the listener from waking into sleep without startling the sleeper awake. It favours subdued frequencies, gentle drones and field recordings of rain or night sounds, often in very long forms — *Robert Rich*'s seven-hour "Somnium" and *Max Richter*'s eight-hour "Sleep" are designed to span an entire night. Where general ambient invites background listening, sleep ambient is engineered around sleep cycles, dynamic restraint and the near-total avoidance of sudden change.