Alright, I had to take a bit of a break from doing anything remotely close to using my brain (chemistry is killing me, y’all), but I am 100% still on my Mass Effect kick. How better to celebrate that than to create a playlist of all the amazing ambient music there is in that game? I can’t think of a single other way!

Anyway, it seriously does have some of the best tracks to just chill to. I already included one track on a previous on rotation …, so I’m not going to include that one on this post (although it is one of my favorite compilations, so I’m sacrificing here). FYI, though, a lot of these are at least an hour long – be prepared to chill for a while.

1

I cannot tell you how many times I have drifted off to sleep with the original game’s title screen playing in the background. It’s like Tibetan bowls in space or something, I can’t explain it.

2

The galaxy map theme is actually the first bit of music that was composed by Sam Hulik for the Mass Effect series, and it was actually just kind of an audition piece, if I remember correctly. They ultimately decided to use it in the game because it’s perfect, and I use this pretty frequently when I’m writing.

3

The music in the Eternity bar on Nos Astra is just the kind of music I’d want in my bar, and I’m not even remotely being sarcastic. It’s got enough to keep someone who just wants to listen to chill music entertained, but it’s not distracting enough to take away from any conversation you may want to have.

4

Despite the fact that the music is kind of low-key “enemies are here! keep looking for them!” in feel, the “Agebinium” track is so soothing.

5

So the ambient music from Alchera (where the Normandy crashed at the beginning of ME2) occasionally gets super creepy-sounding (it’s basically just reusing the track from the Collector ship), but it reminds me so much of Vangelis’ work that it doesn’t unnerve me at all.

6

And now we get to my favorite ME game for ambient music: Mass Effect 3. I don’t know why Bioware went full-hog here with this, but I am 100% here for it. The main title theme is just so beautiful, too. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for “Vigil’s Theme” (in the first video), but I love the work that the composer did here (not sure who it was, honestly? does anyone happen to know??).

7

God, this shit is just like Tibetan bowls. This is better than melatonin, y’all.

8

The Tuchanka ambient music sounds similar to the previous track, but it’s a bit … grittier maybe? More dissonant?

9

Just compare the above Tuchanka video with this one from Thessia. It’s more mysterious, refined, with a bit of spookiness to it.

10

I always loved Samara’s theme from Mass Effect 2, and it was so beautifully used in the ambient music on Lesuss.