Podcast Summary: All Songs Considered – New Songs to Calm the Nerves: 2025

Date: November 4, 2025
Host: Robin Hilton (NPR)
Guests: Dora Levitt, Sheldon Pierce

Episode Overview

In this episode, All Songs Considered continues its widely appreciated "Songs to Calm the Nerves" playlist series, now focusing entirely on newly released music from 2025. Host Robin Hilton is joined by regular contributors Dora Levitt and Sheldon Pierce for an exploration of ambient, calming, and sometimes cathartic tracks—each bringing a unique perspective on what it means to find calm through music in tumultuous times. The conversation moves between genres and moods: from optimistic soundscapes and immersive ambient tracks to raw singer-songwriter confessions and even a cathartic punk release.

Key Discussion Points & Song Picks

Breathing Exercises & the Need for Calm

[00:19]

• The episode begins with Robin guiding a "box breathing" exercise, setting a soothing tone. He jokes about trying to encourage his kids to participate, which they stubbornly resist.
  • Memorable moment:
    • Robin: “We're gonna take a deep breath together. Come on. And they won't do it, right? They just won't take breath. And then eventually devolves to me saying, take a deep breath.” [00:53]

1. Kieran Hebden & William Tyler – "Secret City"

[01:31]

• Dora's Pick: Dora describes calming music as something that propels her forward through repetition and momentum, and cites "Secret City" as music that achieves an immersive flow state.
  • Dora: “Something that I find calms my nerves in music is a song that will just push me forward. Whether that's with repetitive noises or just momentum…” [01:31]
• Songs designed to calm don’t need to be "spa music"—they can be about “optimism music,” which lifts the spirit.
  • Dora: “This feels more to me like optimism music rather than spa music. I feel like spa music can kind of sometimes just be nothing and calm. And this feels like it's looking towards something greater.” [03:06]
• Sheldon finds ambient music more effective when it is purposeful:
  • Sheldon: “But something like this that is really drawing you somewhere, that has real power to settle you.” [03:26]

2. Cassandra Jenkins – "Only Relaxation" (from My Light, My Massage Parlor)

[04:40]

• Sheldon’s Pick: Instrumental ambient music flavored with environmental and city sounds, giving a sense of world-building.
  • Sheldon: “There is both an openness and a sense of quiet to this that feels like maybe the best of both worlds...” [10:18]
• The music is playfully spa-themed and somewhat ironic, but the beauty overrides any self-aware facetiousness.
  • Dora: “It is kind of nice to be able to step into another person's life, too, when you're at your most anxious…” [07:04]
  • Robin: "World building is really important to me when I'm reaching for music to calm my nerves. When you add in ambient sounds, found sounds, things like that, that really transports me." [07:36]

3. David Cordero – "Umedo" (from Let One Bird Sing)

[07:59]

• Robin’s Pick: Ambient, nature-infused, “supreme world-building” that evokes a peaceful walk with a friend; focuses on openness, subtlety, expanse.
  • Robin: “Honestly, ambient, amorphous, drifty music from the ether. That's just about all I can handle this year... Everything I hear, everything I see feels like it has an edge to it. And this is just about my speed this year, I think.” [09:45]
  • Sheldon: “This settles, like, right in that perfect middle ground where I think it's engaging enough that you do feel like you are a part of something here. But there is, like, such a great expanse that you can get lost in it as well.” [10:18]

4. Kia – "Stupid Prizes"

[11:57]

• Dora’s Pick: Music that addresses anxiety directly can be calming because of shared experience. “Anxiety met with anxiety cancels it all out.”
  • Dora: "I want to feel like. I feel like anxiety met with anxiety, cancels it all out." [13:20]
  • Sheldon: "There's comfort in knowing that someone else is going through what you're going through." [14:00]
• The track creatively uses easy listening samples (Percy Faith), enhancing the feeling of sensory deprivation and calm.

5. Anastasia – "Unrest" (from Tether)

[16:39]

• Sheldon’s Pick: A soulful, consoling song about finding comfort amid turmoil, with vocals compared to Nina Simone and Tracy Chapman but “a bit more fragile and delicate.”
  • Robin: “I mean, the second her voice comes in, everything in the world is better.” [18:04]
  • Dora: “It made me think about a lullaby. It made me think about parents singing a lullaby. It made. It just warmed my heart.” [18:57]

6. Klein – “It Is What It Is in D Minor” (from Sleep with a Cane)

[19:25]

• Robin’s Pick: Abstract, electronic soundscape that blends feelings of gentle eeriness and comfort.
  • Robin: "I like a little bit of creepy in my relaxing music because it's sort of like when you're inside under a blanket during a thunderstorm or something. It makes me feel really cozy." [21:53]
  • Dora: “Do you also feel pretty content, though, listening to this song? I feel like even in the title, it is what it is in D minor. As I'm listening, I'm kind of just like, yeah, my life is my life.” [23:03]
  • Robin: “I think she's got a pretty good sense of humor, too. I mean, just calling—the moment you add the key that a song is in, it instantly rises to some grander level...” [23:21]

7. Mark Prince Richard & Thom Yorke – "The Spirit"

[24:27]

• Dora’s Pick: Repetitive, drone-like, hopeful electronic/folk collaboration about “defiant joy” and passing on that optimism.
  • Robin: “Do it to your hold idea of looking for some optimism, too. I mean, this whole song's about defiant joy completely.” [26:19]
  • Dora (on therapeutic resonance): "It lights up my eyes. I also feel like this must be what they play during tapping therapy or emdr." [26:25]

8. Hand Habits – "Jasmine Blossoms"

[28:28]

• Sheldon’s Pick: Song about intentional escapism and community care as a form of calm—a refusal to let world events be overwhelming without seeking moments of introspective peace.
  • Sheldon: “It is important to sort of balance that realization with little moments taken to yourself. And this song feels like such a beautiful attempt to find that balance.” [30:35]
  • Dora: “It is nice to want to join someone in, like, community action and realization. And just like, try.” [31:19]

9. Ozbolt – "Harkerville Coastal Trail" (from Chasing Drakens)

[32:14]

• Robin’s Pick: Ambient field recording-inspired piece described as being like “floating away like a helium filled balloon” [34:25], or the peaceful soundscape of “the Good Place.”
  • Robin: "It's very transporting for me." [34:25]
  • Dora: “There was a quote that said, what happens when you leave a harp in a field and let the wind pass over it? Which I thought was really beautiful and really apt.” [35:55]

10. Samia – "Pool (Stripped)" (from Baby Fifth Anniversary Deluxe)

[36:31]

• Dora’s Pick: A raw, intimate rerecording, stretching the theme of calming music to include personal and familial connection—Samia’s grandmother’s voice opens the track
  • Dora: "Hearing your grandmother speak to you is just the ultimate lullaby." [38:34]
  • Robin: “Everything's just kind of more in the clear and raw, like you said. So it ends up being more intimate and more transporting. It feels like you're much closer to it all.” [39:10]
  • Sheldon: “There is a connection being made, and I think that is the power of it.” [39:26]

11. The Armed – "I Steal What I Want" (from The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to be Destroyed)

[40:10]

• Sheldon’s Pick: Catharsis over quiet—sometimes the best way to calm nerves is to rage and release.
  • Sheldon: “This song is from an album called the Future Is Here and Everything Needs to be destroyed. And there is like a real rage room quality about the song that invokes, like, the fire in me that needs to be put out.” [41:19]
  • Dora: “There still needs to be a moment where I just have a great scream and just kind of, like you said, a rage room, just a great scream. And this really does that?” [42:07]
  • Robin: “If this is what you need to do to reset and then suddenly you feel a lot better, I get it.” [42:26]

12. Stars of the Lid – "Good Night" (30th Anniversary Remaster, Music for Nitrous Oxide)

[42:55]

• Robin’s Closing Pick: Ambient “gold standard”—calm as near-silence. A seminal work in the genre, now reissued and remastered.
  • Dora: “Out of all of the ambient music that we played today, this one sounded the most like silence to me, which I thought was really cool to be able to pinpoint a sound as closest to silence.” [44:10]
  • Sheldon: “It really does feel like they are operating the knobs inside your brain and putting it to all the right settings.” [44:40]
  • Robin: “That is definitely what's going on in this music.” [44:56]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On “optimism music” vs. spa music:

  • Dora: “This feels more to me like optimism music rather than spa music... This feels like it's looking towards something greater.” [03:06]

• On using music as an empathetic mirror for anxiety:

  • Dora: “I feel like anxiety met with anxiety, cancels it all out.” [13:20]

• On escapism in music:

  • Robin: “I don't want to be me anymore. When I'm listening to music. I want to get away. As far away from me as possible.” [22:45]

• On cathartic music as calm:

  • Sheldon: “There is a real rage room quality about the song that invokes, like, the fire in me that needs to be put out. There's just something about the thrash of it really feeling like it's getting all the jitters out. And then you can be normal and have the reset that is required. It's a different kind of calm…" [41:19]

• Stars of the Lid described as the ‘gold standard’ of calming music:

  • Robin: “For me they are synonymous with music to calm the nerves, the gold standard of calming music.” [43:00]

Thematic Threads & Reflections

• Calm is Subjective: Each host or guest defines calm differently. For Robin, true escape is a loss of self; Dora seeks optimistic movement and recognition of shared human struggle; Sheldon sometimes prefers cathartic, even agitated, releases.
• World-Building in Sound: Several picks aren’t just passive—by including field recordings, city sounds, or layering environmental textures, these songs give listeners a sense of being elsewhere.
• Empathy and Community: Whether conveyed through lyrics or emotional delivery, songs expressing anxiety, struggle, or warmth offer listeners a sense of solidarity and hope, touching on the communal nature of music's soothing power.
• Reset and Perspective: All hosts return to the theme of finding “reset” from overwhelm, whether by tranquil ambient sound, empathetic storytelling, or energetic catharsis.

Quick Reference Guide to Songs & Timestamps

| Song / Artist | Segment Start | |---------------------------------------------|---------------| | “Secret City” — Kieran Hebden & William Tyler | 01:31 | | “Only Relaxation” — Cassandra Jenkins | 04:40 | | “Umedo” — David Cordero | 07:59 | | “Stupid Prizes” — Kia | 11:57 | | “Unrest” — Anastasia | 16:39 | | “It Is What It Is in D Minor” — Klein | 19:25 | | “The Spirit” — Mark Prince Richard & Thom Yorke | 24:27 | | “Jasmine Blossoms” — Hand Habits | 28:28 | | “Harkerville Coastal Trail”—Ozbolt | 32:14 | | “Pool (Stripped)” — Samia | 36:31 | | “I Steal What I Want” — The Armed | 40:10 | | “Good Night”—Stars of the Lid | 42:55 |

Conclusion

The episode closes with a tribute to the enduring power of ambient music, specifically Stars of the Lid, whose remastered works serve as a final “reset” for listeners' frayed nerves. The discussion is full of warmth, mutual understanding, and moments of levity, capturing the myriad ways people use music to escape, recharge, and reconnect.

For the full playlist, find “Songs to Calm the Nerves” on Spotify and Apple Music via NPR.