New songs to calm the nerves: 2025

All Songs Considered

NPR

Music

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our fourth installment of music to slow the blood is a mix of all-new releases from this year, from the world-building, ambient sounds of Ozbolt and Klein to the hope, optimism and good company found in the music of Samia, Hand Habits, KeiyaA and more.

NPR Music’s Dora Levite and Sheldon Pearce join host Robin Hilton.

Featured songs and artists:

1. Kieren Hebden & William Tyler: “Secret City,” from ‘41 Longfield Street Late ‘80s’
2. Cassandra Jenkins: “Only Relaxation,” from ‘My Light, My Massage Parlor’
3. David Cordero & anthené: “Humedal,” from ‘Let One Bird Sing’
4. KeiyaA: “stupid prizes,” from ‘hooke’s law’
5. Annahstasia: Unrest,” from ‘Tether’
6. Klein: “it is what it is in d minor,” from ‘sleep with a cane’
7. Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke: “The Spirit,” from ‘Tall Tales’
8. Hand Habits: “Jasmine Blossoms,” from ‘Blue Reminder’
9. Ozbolt: “Harkerville Coastal Trail,” from ‘Chasyng Drakens’
10. Samia: “Pool (Stripped),” from ‘The Baby (5th Anniversary Edition)’
11. The Armed: “I Steal What I Want,” from ‘The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed’
12. Stars of the Lid: “Goodnight,” from ‘Music for Nitrous Oxide (30 Year Anniversary 2025 Remaster)'

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's just start with a little box breathing.
0:07.0	You know, and this isn't anything that, you know, like you don't have to be lying down to do this.
0:11.0	You can be doing anything. Maybe you're on your bike right now.
0:14.0	Maybe you're driving your car into work or something.
0:18.0	Just go ahead and close your eyes. Take a slow, deep breath. You're not holding your
0:26.9	breath. Sorry, sorry. I forgot about the top of the box. I can't tell you how many times I try to get my
0:34.9	kids when they're freaking out. I say, okay, come on, let's take a just, we're going to take a deep breath together. Come on. And they won't do it, right? They just won't take that breath. And it eventually devolves to me saying, take a deep breath. Well, it's all songs considered. I'm Robin Hilton here with Dora Levitt, Sheldon Pierce. This is the fourth installment in our ongoing mixes or playlists of songs to calm the nerves.
1:00.0	We started it last year with songs to calm the nerves, and then we did more songs to calm the nerves,
1:06.0	and even more songs to calm the nerves.
1:08.0	Those were all a mix of new and old stuff. So for this installment,
1:13.3	we're going to focus entirely on new stuff. Something that I find calms my nerves in music is
1:20.8	a song that will just push me forward, whether that's with repetitive noises or just momentum will just kind of propel me
1:30.1	forward. And it can be a long song and by the end I don't even realize how long it was because
1:35.1	I'm just there. And a song that I feel like really does that for me is Secret City by
1:40.3	Kieran Hebden and William Tyler. The
2:03.6	The the way to be the same. The
2:20.3	The the way to the world. I feel like with songs that make you calm, a lot of times I immediately go to like, oh, it has to be spa music.
2:56.8	And this feels more to me, like, optimism music rather than spa music.
3:02.5	I feel like spa music can kind of sometimes just be nothing and calm,
3:07.8	and this feels like it's looking towards something greater.
3:11.0	Yeah, this song just sort of like steadily keeps growing and growing and growing,
3:16.1	and then by the end you feel full.
	...

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