When we think of other worlds, we seldom consider environments already present in our own. Most imaginations trace the stars and distant planets, but few of us are likely to ever witness these far-flung frontiers firsthand. Fortunately, a world-within-a-world exists within reach: it’s none other than the humble swimming pool. Paired with the proper music—synthwave and ambient electronic tracks, in this instance—your next visit can transcend exercise into a meditative reconnection with embodiment.
Writers, readers, and chronic head-dwellers sometimes forget they’re flesh and bone as much as synapses and soul. Swimming, especially underwater, honors both realities, restoring the relationship between mind and matter. The following synthwave and ambient tracks help immerse you in a state of gentle recalibration and clarity while water sweeps beneath you and the lights at the end of the pool illuminate your passage.
Taking the Plunge
1. Krosia -“Boundary”
Wet your hair and breach the “otherworld” in this slick synth groover by French artist and producer Krosia. Dissonant opening chords immediately warp reality, glitching you between the past and present. “Boundary” then saunters into a swaggering beat that’ll compel you to push toward the far pool wall on your first lap.
Pools are boundaries of their own, safe containers for our physical humanity. They are large enough to carry us, and they help us remember we have limbs and breath. You’re not obligated to anything underwater except your lungs. You step outside time. “Boundary” reinforces this environmental shift. It’s a little fantastical, a touch Windows 2000, and of course, a whole lot of 1980s. Enjoyers should try Krosia’s “Azur” next if they want the neon to consume them.
2. Hotel Pools – “Blur”
Swimming gives the introspective what Pacific Northwestern synth artist Ben Braun’s solo project, Hotel Pools, gives him: permission to explore inward. While the body glides on waves of water, Hotel Pools transports listeners through sound waves that ebb and flow like dream state consciousness. “Blur” is your self-dissolution echoed across hypnotic synth swells and occasional bright notes that touch the stratosphere. Like most Hotel Pools creations, “Blur” emanates a cosmic aura. On land, you’ll want to relax in place and maybe sink into old memories. In water, you become a voyager treading the edges of discovery, but softly and slowly.
Ironically, my first swim soundtracked by Hotel Pools took place in a hotel pool. Synthwave’s liquid textures tend to evoke a feeling of submersion, and Ben Braun’s project excels at floating you across space and time.
3. FM-84 – “Nightdrive”
You’re entering a rhythm now. The initial thigh burn melts away as FM-84’s crystalline bell synths and rocking drums prompt exploration and constant, curious movement inside the lane lines. “Nightdrive” is a scintillating constellation of untapped potential, its whimsical introduction fit for a fantasy film. It sounds like the places you’ve been wanting to go, the people you’re hoping to meet, and the expectation that it’s all going to be worthwhile.
Col Bennett, FM-84’s creator, describes his work on Spotify as “the sound of a summer long gone,” but like most synthwave, it’s more complex than that. “Nightdrive” is a motion toward future memories as much as an homage to the past. The track helps swimmers embrace forward thinking as they navigate their glowing waterscape.
Mid-Session Motion
4. FM Attack – “A Million Miles Away”
Space cadet vocals orbiting a breezy melody really may send you to Heaven in “A Million Miles Away”; that’s exactly where you want to be partway through your swim. Upbeat yet supremely unbothered, FM Attack’s fresh, synthpop/summer chiller track guides you into a sustained dance with your aquatic surroundings.
”A Million Miles Away” is one of the two non-instrumental pieces on this list. The lyrics don’t interfere with its atmosphere, though, and if anything, they enhance it. Cocooned in synths and water, you’ll feel like you’re as far from your problems as the song’s title, yet still excited to keep moving.
5. Home – “Head First”
Your pulse hastens. Keeping the blood pumping is Chicago-based artist Randy Goffe, or ‘Home’, with his rousing electronic number “Head First”. Although best known for his cozy synthwave piece “Resonance”, Goffe can also ignite a need for speed. “Head First” has a brisk beat, a bold, running bass, and rock-like electric (or synth-mimicked) guitar to spike your confidence mid-stroke. “Head First” isn’t as cinematic as other pieces featured here, but it can stir a hard-charging back-and-forth between the shallow and deep ends. This isn’t back-floating music.
6. Space Sailors – “Satellite”
The bouncy “Satellite” is an inquisitive, questing spirit rendered in sonic form—perfect for leaning into the discovery side of your swim. Shiny synths galaxy trot over an eager beat like they’re angling toward some hope that’s just out of reach. You’ll feel that same encouragement underwater to seek, peer around corners, and look ahead, literally and figuratively, to what’s next.
Watch your hands when combing the water. See how light plays off your fingers. Push yourself through a stream of bubbles that you created. Your body is your adventure gear in the vast reaches of underwater space. Let “Satellite” beam some playful goodness into your ears that fills your body with an itch for adventure.
7. Pastel Beach – “Mana Potion”
You’ve been swimming hard at this point. You drift to a leisurely pace, pausing from proving yourself to the T-mark for a few minutes. Calm whimsy now soaks your mind and muscles, allowing you to loosen up in dreams of yesterday. “Mana Potion” is your elixir of repose.
Rolling in like the THX logo on your favorite old film, “Mana Potion” briefly hints at something Super Mario Bros. (1985) or The Legend of Zelda-adjacent before settling on its identity as a lyricless city pop piece. Pastel Beach boots up as much nostalgia in three and a half minutes as they can muster to make us acutely aware of time’s passage. “Mana Potion” tugs you back into a slightly wistful state of mind. Your body softens in thanks.
Last Laps
8. Timecop1983 – “On the Run”
Dutch electronic artist Timecop1983’s “On the Run” sees the artist’s bold, cinematic style shape an expansive sonic world where all his influences—Drive (2011), Daft Punk, Justice, and 1980s classics—surge to life, straight from your ears into your arms and legs. “On the Run” is pure neon euphoria. As water drenches you, so does a deluge of synths. The pastiche, the panache, and the power throbbing from the track’s bass are nearly enough to melt you into the pool water. You become something of a liquid yourself.
A few years back, I’d listen to “On the Run” on the bus in Japan as it cruised around the coastal countryside. Dark vegetation popped against ocean views and pale, tile-roof houses along the Miura Peninsula, affecting a sense of gliding through another planet. “On the Run” mirrored the otherworldly sensation of my passage. In some ways, living in Japan echoes the majestic feeling of submersion, heightened by Timecop1983’s icy, futuristic soundscapes.
9. Crazyblox – “Beneath the Ruins“
This ambient track’s chunky, off-kilter digital chords and retro flair evoke a sense of uncovering an amazing truth. “Beneath The Ruins” can add a slightly moody atmosphere to your swim—a choice stroke of gray in your blue sky.
English game developer and musician Crazyblox has mastered the art of the looping video game number, and his Flood Escape 2 soundtrack is perfect for dialing your swim back into self-reflection before the session ends. Try “Lobby (2020 Version)” to open yourself inside a peaceful waterfall of piano, “Cave System” to be enveloped in a Legend of Zelda-style mystery, or “Sunken Citadel” for a lucid dream.
10. The Midnight – “Endless Summer”
Your swim is coming to an end, and whether you start or end your next session with “Endless Summer”, you won’t be wrong. The title track to the Midnight’s 2016 album glows to life on glittering synth scales that instantly shift any pool into an alternate dimension steeped in personal remembrance. “Endless Summer” is hometown warmth and nostalgia so palpable, you can taste them on the tip of your tongue.
Synth-pop extraordinaires Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle have a gift for goldsmithing some of our most visceral and electric emotions into song. “Vampires” drinks to the desperate ecstasy of doomed love. In “America Online”, a disembodied soul trembles through the ether, seeking connection. When the beat enters and the saxophone layers over bittersweet synths in “Endless Summer”, I’m reminded of my birthplace and how it felt to dream big in a place too small to hold me.
All life’s possibilities magnify underwater, gleaming off my immersed and chlorinated skin. I propel myself to the rhythm and am entirely present in my body. Underwater is where one understands oneself, because the superficial washes away. The only thing left is you and the memories you made that endless summer.