Øneheart - samsara passengers - kurate
AT RADIO NOW
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.
Øneheart said: “The idea for this album was born in June 2024 during a late-night session with my dad, when we imagined blending dark ambient with ethnic instruments. Together with my close friend Konstantin (Dean Korso), we developed the concept that eventually grew into Samsara Passengers. Despite all the challenges along the way, this became the most experimental and conceptual release I’ve ever created."
Leadwave said: “This album has turned out to be both contrasting and highly conceptual. It truly reveals itself only when experienced as a whole. That’s when all the pieces come together and I’m delighted that the idea I initially proposed to my son to create an ambient album with a unique sound, later supported by Konstantin, has now been fully realized."
Dean Korso said: “We had already collaborated with Øneheart on the album Midnight Journey, and when he suggested working together on the new record, I immediately agreed. With him and his father, leadwave, we share a wonderful synergy built on mutual respect - a true collaboration rather than competition. Throughout the process we supported and inspired each other, developing one another’s ideas. A few months later, as the outlines of the album began to take shape, we realized the depth of the work we had accomplished. Samsara Passengers is a mature, profound, and deeply philosophical piece, which we recommend experiencing in its entirety, from beginning to end.”
Moby said: “One of my favorite things about collaborating with Øneheart was the fact that as i was working on 'lagrange point' as the sun was setting in los angeles, Dmitry was working on it as the sun was rising where he lived in Russia. The fact that this quiet, spacious music was traveling instantaneously through 12 time zones and thousands and thousands of empty miles of air and space somehow created the perfect backdrop for the collaboration.”
Samsara Passengers
Tracklist:
01 shifting sands
02 before it begins (w/ Medasin)
03 momentary drift (w/ Younger Brother)
04 while the time sleeps (w/ Au5)
05 under the rising sun (w/ remind me)
06 lagrange point (w/ Moby)
07 beyond the veil (w/ Owsey)
08 between realities
09 don't leave me (w/ Kiran + Nivi)
10 nomad (w/ Jeff Rona)
11 into the unknown
12 saying goodbye (w/ Antent)