Russian teenager reinventing ambient music for the TikTok generation reveals new album

Friday 22nd August 2025: Russian teenager Øneheart, one of the mysterious producers behind the massive global hit ‘Snowfall’, has stepped into the limelight with a new album, Samsara Passengers.

Millions of people will know his music and now they will know the artist too. The 2022 track 'Snowfall' (with reidenshi) has been confirmed 2x platinum, having been used to soundtrack more than 5 million TikTok clips. The song is undoubtedly the highest RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) awarded ambient single in the modern age of music, if not of all time.

The new record has seen the musical prodigy, who has one million followers on Spotify, team up with fellow Russian artists Dean Korso and Leadwave - who is also Øneheart's father. Tracks include collaborations with Moby, Kiran Nivi, Au5, Jeff Rona, remind me, Antent and Younger Brother.

Samsara Passengers is a concept album illustrating life’s voyage towards wisdom and is the latest step in the career of Øneheart, still only 19, a true product of the international ambient music community.

It is a project across borders and across generations, taking on ideas beyond politics and the everyday challenges of modern life. In an age of AI infiltration of music, it is a record built on collaboration, bringing acoustic instruments into an ambient world, dominated by electronica.

Samsara Passengers

Øneheart’s father, Leadwave, 46, became an ambient musician and producer with the help of his son - and the project sees them work with composer and electronic producer Dean Korso, 49. Their different perspectives, life experiences and musical approaches shaped the album’s core idea: a journey through the different stages of life, the accumulation of experience and the pursuit of wisdom.

From the first heartbeat in a mother's womb, through growing up, going through loss and joy, undergoing spiritual revelations and attempting to peer beyond the boundaries of existence, one ultimate challenge awaits us - death itself.

The record explores a person’s journey to an acceptance of their own mortality - just as they accept the impermanence of all matter in the universe - and the blossoming of a life following this awakening.

Human music

Wrapped into the concept of the album was the decision to bring ‘traditional’ instrumentation into the recordings, which are unconstrained by geography. The album’s epilogue and focus track is ‘saying goodbye’, which has at its centre a guitar figure by Dean Korso, and presents a solidarity, reflecting Øneheart’s collaboration with close friend Antent.

‘before it begins’ features Peruvian pan pipes and quena flute, and was created with electronic music star Medasin, while ‘momentary drift’ is built around acoustic guitar and created with psychedelic electronica pioneers Younger Brother.

A live string orchestra recorded in Manchester features on ‘momentary drift’, which is a collaboration with Austin Collins, known as Au5.

Japanese instruments koto and shakuhachi create the sound palette for ‘under the rising sun’, which features the ambient producer known as ‘remind me’. ‘between realities’ was recorded in Budapest and is led by the flugelhorn and trumpet.

‘don't leave me’ (with Kiran Nivi) is the most emotionally vulnerable moment in the album and features the shehnai, a North Indian wind instrument. It is a collaboration with Kiran and Nivi who became a viral sensation on TikTok and Instagram for their vocal harmonies.

‘nomad’ is a collaboration with Hollywood composer Jeff Rona, who plays flute, along with Eric Mirzoyan on duduk