There’s a peculiar kind of alchemy happening in ambient music right now, one that defies conventional assumptions about what makes an ambient experience work. GEM Auset, the Grammy-nominated Australian electronic producer and artist, has cracked something fundamental: how to craft a vocal-forward ambient record with zero lyrics, yet somehow tell stories so vivid and emotionally resonant that listeners swear they’ve heard narratives whispered through the soundscapes.
Her latest project, According to the Moon, created in collaboration with composer and vocalist Cheryl B Engelhardt and Dallas String Quartet is the proof point. It’s an ambient album that shouldn’t work by industry logic no verses, no choruses, no hook to embed itself in your consciousness through repetition. And yet, it does work, spectacularly. The vocal top line doesn’t carry lyrics, it carries intention. It carries narrative. It carries you into spaces both internal and cosmic.
This is what separates exceptional artists from the merely competent. GEM and Engelhardt don’t use the human voice as decoration for the production. They deploy it as architecture, as meaning itself, as the connective tissue between sound and spirit. The album is now competing in the Grammy Awards’ Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album category—recognition that validates the artistic vision underlying this collaborative work.
To understand According to the Moon is to understand why GEM has become one of the most compelling artists reshaping what ambient music can accomplish. The album breathes with intention in a genre often characterized by either lush excess or minimalist austerity. GEM finds a third path: deliberate restraint married with emotional resonance.
The opening moments of the album establish their approach immediately. Sparse synthesizers emerge from silence. Then comes the voice; luminous, wordless, but undeniably communicative. The vocal melody doesn’t need language because it’s already doing the work language would do. It’s yearning. It’s questioning. It’s reaching toward something just beyond comprehension.
The creative process required thoughtful negotiation of artistic visions across multiple locations and sensibilities. As Engelhardt describes the collaboration, the two artists established what they jokingly called their “goal posts,” with GEM leaning deeply into ambient textures while Engelhardt brought her contemporary classical and vocal composition expertise. “We had to find the center point and then gently stretch toward each other’s worlds,” Engelhardt explains.
The collaboration required meaningful artistic dialogue. GEM was particularly effusive about the collaboration with Park. “Working with Lonnie was incredibly powerful,” she notes. “He really ensured our own unique artist perspectives and voices were represented equally. That balance was crucial to what this album became. We’re greater than the sum of our individual parts”
The creation of According to the Moon was itself a nomadic undertaking, reflecting the album’s expansive vision. Sessions took place across multiple continents from GEM’s studio in Sydney, through the Alps of France with Engelhardt, to Ithica where Lonnie Park contributed production expertise, and collaborations that happened all over the world. This geographic diversity infuses the album with varied sonic textures and creative energy, each location contributing its own character to the work.
The production throughout According to the Moon emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure. There’s a luminescence to the sound design—shimmering synths that recall moonlight on water, reverb-drenched strings that seem to dissolve into atmosphere, vocal harmonies that layer like clouds passing before the moon.[1] It’s gorgeous, but it’s purposefully gorgeous. Every aesthetic choice serves the conceptual framework.
The album’s concept built around lunar phases and cycles adds another layer of sophistication to the sonic experience. This isn’t mere thematic decoration. The lunar framework becomes a genuine narrative device, one that unfolds across the album’s runtime without a single word being sung.
The new moon tracks move inward, toward introspection and darkness. Full moon pieces expand outward, celestial and boundless. The progression through lunar phases tells a story of cycles, of return, of the eternal patterns governing existence. Listeners follow this journey even without explicit lyrical guidance, which speaks to GEM and Engelhardt’s skill as composers and arrangers.
A particularly clever touch that GEM attributes to Engelhardt is the track titles spell out the artists’ initials—GEM and CBE—creating a hidden Easter egg within the album’s architecture.[1]
“I wanted to create music that proved you could move people emotionally without lyrics,” GEM explains. “Ambient music taught me that silence and space are as important as the notes themselves. By building the album around lunar phases, I’m connecting to something real that we’ve largely forgotten about.”
Critics have seized on the pair’s vocal performances as essential to the album’s power. Without lyrical scaffolding, voice must convey everything through timbre, phrasing, and melodic gesture. The emotional weight lands differently—more directly, perhaps, more universally. A listener might hear grief in one passage, transcendence in another, without those interpretations being dictated by words.
The album has already achieved significant commercial success, spending multiple weeks as Amazon’s best-selling ambient album.[1]
Beyond the music itself, GEM has positioned According to the Moon within something larger: the emerging wellness-focused ambient DJ sets music movement. This shift from high stimulation nightlife toward intentional communal experiences centered on genuine presence represents a significant realignment in how people engage with music collectively.
GEM’s Frequency sets and live performance experiences featuring ambient electronic material and real-time synthesis have become flagship events in the global wellness circuit. These aren’t small affairs. Thousands of people are gathering worldwide to experience ambient electronic without chemical enhancement.
“What’s happening is really beautiful,” GEM reflects. “People are realizing they don’t need substances to have transcendent experiences. And for that realization to take hold, the music has to be good enough—better than good, actually. It has to be genuinely profound.”
This is where ambient electronic becomes revolutionary. Traditional nightlife music, designed to escalate excitement toward climactic moments, can feel hollow when experienced sober. But music designed around subtlety, around emotional depth, around genuine artistic expression? That works better without intoxication. That’s more powerful when the nervous system is fully present.
GEM and Engelhardt’s work explicitly prioritizes wellness and nervous system regulation. This intention permeates both the According to the Moon*album and the live Frequency DJ experiences.
As According to the Moon gains traction internationally and competes in Grammy season, it’s becoming clear that this creative powerhouse of a team has identified something essential about where music culture is heading. The wellness focused ambient movement isn’t a niche phenomenon, it’s a genuine cultural realignment. Younger listeners especially are seeking authentic connection, emotional depth, and experiences rooted in intention rather than stimulation.
According to the Moon doesn’t just soundtrack the wellness movement; it represents its highest artistic expression.
The album stands as proof that ambient music can be sophisticated without being cold, immersive without being overwhelming, and deeply moving without relying on lyrical convention. It’s the sound of mature artists operating at peak creative power, reshaping what’s possible in contemporary ambient music.
GEM Auset and Cheryl B Engelhardt haven’t just created an album. They’ve mapped a future for ambient music, one where frequency rises above stimulation, where the voice speaks without words, and where ancient celestial cycles guide us toward something genuinely transformative.
The revolution isn’t coming. According to GEM Auset, it’s already here
