You may remember my post to this blog, Music To Read Tarot By, recommending some sources of ambient/new age music for use when reading tarot, meditating, etc. This is an update of that post, since I’ve discovered a couple more excellent sources.

As I mentioned on the earlier post, I like to have background music playing when I read tarot. It helps me focus and keep odd external noises from distracting me. I prefer to have fairly neutral music playing, since I worry that anything too emotional might “color” the reading too much. I also prefer music without a beat for this purpose. Recently, I’ve also been playing these stations when napping and sleeping.

Ambient Sleeping Pill bills itself as “Internet Radio pouring out uninterrupted music for sleeping, taking Naps and other more wakeful tranquil moments” and that’s a very fair description. It streams 24/7 with “No ads, no beats, no new-age-cheese.” Most of the music it plays is free for downloading also, although one of the ways the station has been funding itself is by selling CD and downloadable compilations of some of the best music it plays. I applaud this station for keeping the ads out of the stream; there’s nothing more jarring than an upbeat advertisement when you’re in the moment!

Drone Zone is a streaming station from the SomaFM family of Internet radio stations; in fact, it was the first SomaFM station. It bills itself as, “Served best chilled, safe with most medications. Atmospheric textures with minimal beats.” It goes on to say, “Droning atmospheric space music and ambient textures with minimal beats. Music on Drone Zone is all about sonic textures and environments.” You’re likely to hear music by such artists as Steve Roach, Brian Eno, Harold Budd, Robert Davies, etc. The music is scheduled and programmed by Rusty Hodge, the founder of SomaFM and the General Manager and Music Director. SomaFM is listener-supported, mostly by donations. There are occasional channel IDs, but they’re in keeping with the sound of the station, and not intrusive.

Both of these stations can be listened to directly by going to the websites linked to above, or by using an application like TuneIn. TuneIn’s mobile apps have a sleep timer, which turns a channel off after a given time period, which is handy! SomaFM also has its own app. available.

I’ll make the same request that I did at the end of my previous post about music; do you know of any other sources of this kind of music? If so, please do share in a comment below.

UPDATE: Somebody on Facebook saw this post and commented, including a link to another resource that’s too good not to share here: Ambient Chillout Music Mixes by JaBig. It’s a collection of music by Brian Eno.