Find Your Sound · Result
The Ambient Drifter
The chill out room, a slow record, and nobody asking you to dance.
Designed rarity: about 10% of takers
You are drawn to the room next to the dance floor. Ambient house came out of the chill out rooms at London raves around 1989 and 1990, where the Orb and the KLF played long, drifting records for people who needed somewhere to land, and Little Fluffy Clouds became the sound of the morning after. You prefer listening to performing and depth to peaks, and you have always suspected the best music of the night is playing somewhere quieter.
You tend to find the quiet corner, the back room or the terrace, and settle in for the long, slow records. Balearic sets that mix anything slow and beautiful regardless of genre suit you, and so does the melancholy of Bristol trip hop by Massive Attack and Portishead. The feeling you chase is closer to a dock in Muskoka at dusk than to anything a club sells, best shared with a few friends, quiet in the same place.
Your strength
You notice the texture of a record that others hear only as background.
Your blind spot
Some early exits are taste and some are avoidance, and the two can be hard to tell apart.
Key takeaways
- Your sound is ambient, Balearic and trip hop: slow, deep and textured.
- You would rather listen closely than perform on a dance floor.
- The feeling works best with other people being quiet nearby.
Genres to start with
Records to start with
In Seoul
This sound lives in the listening bars of Mangwon, Yeonnam and Euljiro, on rooftop sunset sessions in summer, and in the early hours of long nights before the main room fills up.
Your first night
Find a listening bar with a good sound system this weekend, sit near the speakers with one drink, and let the person behind the counter choose for two hours.
Rooms to try in Seoul
- Kompakt Record Bar, Sinsa: DJs play their own vinyl here, drifting through ambient, soul and city pop, so you can sit back and let the records carry the night.
- Tilt, Hongdae: Built by a veteran sound engineer for deep listening, this basement plays ambient and experimental music with real care, perfect when you want to listen, not dance.
Rooms to try around the world
- Public Records, New York: Its Sound Room was designed for careful listening, and the ambient and slow electronic sets here reward you for sitting still and paying attention.
- Café del Mar, Ibiza: This is where Balearic chill out was born, and forty five years on you can still watch the sunset while slow records play.
- Forestlimit, Tokyo: Born as a listening bar with giant speaker stacks, this Hatagaya room hosts ambient and experimental nights where you can drift as long as you like.
Your nearest types
Read next: Going Out in Seoul, neighbourhood by neighbourhood