Drifting Off into ‘Space 1.8’

Nala Sinephro’s "ambient jazz" opus and the final frontier

It’s funny how the appeal of space changes over time. At least for me.

When I was a kid, I dreamed of being an astronaut. Or maybe the dream was inherited. My grandfather spent his youth in Texas not just dreaming up rockets – he created them. Back in the 1950s, he and his friends would “borrow” what they could from the school’s chemistry lab to create their own recipe for rocket fuel. At least on one occasion, they blew a city sidewalk into rubble. Vandalism wasn’t the goal, just a byproduct.

He never made it to space – though he gets as close as you can in his plane. But as a kid he’d regale me with stories of the cosmos. He’d explain to me the name of the stars, the distance of planets, and the real possibility of life somewhere out there. He and my grandmother loved to recall how as a young kid I could recite Patrick Stewart’s opening to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Space: the final frontier.

I never made it to space either. Though, you know, not ruling it out. My interests and focus changed to music, though with a lifelong love of science fiction. I remember being fascinated by what all could be out there. I picked up every UFO book I could from the school library and the Scholastic book fair. I dreamed of meeting aliens, exploring new worlds. It fueled my imagination to think of infinite possibilities out there.

But now, when I think of space, I think about peace. The endlessness is inviting just for the fact that it’s so far away from all the problems here on Earth. Maybe it’s still a fascination with the infinite possibilities in our seemingly infinite universe (don’t @ me Neil deGrasse Tyson).

During the pandemic, I did a full rewatch of The Next Generation. And while I did still love seeing strange new worlds, new life, and civilizations, I found myself most drawn to the relative calm of it all. Things certainly heat up at points, but there’s long stretches of people just talking and making (sometimes) sensible decisions while light, ambient computer beeping chirps up in the background. And not just that, but just the whole premise of it all captivated me in a new way. A universe where Earth’s population moves beyond wars and capitalism, all needs are met, and people can afford to turn their ambitions to the stars.

Doodle from my notebooks circa 2020

All of this to say, that my vision or dreams of space have changed a lot over three decades. Now I dream of it as a place that we haven’t ruined (yet). A place far away from earthly stresses and fears, of which I find myself overwhelmed with often. I’m no astronomer, but the ideas and visions of what space could be compel me. It’s fascinated artists from Sun Ra who deemed that Space Is The Place. Brian Eno framed it as the next western horizon with Apollo, his score for the moon landing documentary For All Mankind.

Nala Sinephro’s 2021 opus Space 1.8 is within this grand non-traditional tradition. Being an instrumental jazz record, there’s not a lot to go on for the space theme beyond the album’s title and each of the eight tracks being named “Space 1,” “Space 2,” “Space 3,” and so on. But that’s one thing I’ve come to love about jazz and ambient music. While the music is often wordless, just a few words in a title can suddenly conjure up whole worlds and philosophies. It doesn’t take much to set your imagination aflame. Especially when the music is as consuming as this. Add in the gorgeous album art with a head surrounded by Saturn-like rings and my own head is already in the cosmos.

There have been moments when I’ve described this record as some of the most beautiful music recorded this century. A big subjective claim, but one I’m pretty willing to stand behind. With each new listen since it first came out, I’ve only come to love this record more. And if pressed to try to get someone into “ambient jazz” (a term Sinephro has never assigned to herself, but most artists aren’t wont to do that anyway), I would immediately point them here. The opening moments of “Space 1” alone are some of the most awe-inspiring, soothing sounds I’ve heard. That this came out the same year as Floating Points and Pharaoh Sanders Promises feels like some sort of divine timing.

With music like this, “peaceful” often will get brought up as a dominant emotion. See also: relaxing, calm, and blissful. And of course, I feel that too. Space 1.8 is a record that transfixes me whenever it comes on, but it’s also one of the first I turn to in times of overwhelm. I’ve used it as an escape. Harp-and-synthesizer-fueled rocket ship to escape my troubles and head for the stars.

But in some ways, I’ve had it wrong. Space 1.8 isn’t about escaping. It’s about confronting life head-on. As Sinephro shared in an interview with Pitchfork in 2022, part of the album was inspired by health issues she had earlier in life, particularly having to remove a tumor when she was 15. Years after the fact, she was finally ready to confront some of the feelings lingering after that scare. The album isn’t about the tumor, instead she says, “it’s about the conversation around mortality. The beauty of creating space for my fear and looking it in the eye was life-changing. The moment I accepted that [repressed] fear, the album flowed.”

Closer inspection of the record drives her point home. Maybe nowhere is the tension felt more than on the knotty “Space 6,” an eruption of saxophones and clamoring drums all colliding like asteroids into a rocky surface. It’s a wake-up call in the middle of the album, a reminder that Sinephro never sought out “ambient” (in the Pitchfork interview she claims to not have really known much about ambient going in).

But these moments of chaos only make the moments of serenity feel even more pleasing. After the dreamy short passage of “Space 7,” the album moves into what I think is its finest moments with the 17-minute closer “Space 8.” Especially coming out of the chaos of two songs earlier, this elongated, droning ending feels hard earned. Calm after the fury. At the risk of cliche, I always find myself imagining the feeling of drifting off into galactic abyss at this point. It’s not so much a heavenly send-off as it is wondrous and contemplative. A slow-moving twirl as zero-gravity pulls you further and further into the nothingness. Nebulas and far-off stars light-years beyond your reach. Time without end. As much a luxury as it is purgatory.

As much as I turn to this album when my head is weary and needs release, I can now see it as Sinephro confronting weariness with a punk rock, “fuck off.” Peaceful isn’t passive. The stars aren’t just beautiful twinkling lights, they’re masses of fiery gas that would evaporate you in an instant if you got close. Space 1.8 isn’t an escape. It’s a call to boldly go.

20th Century Ambient is Coming in November

My upcoming book, 20th Century Ambient, is now available for pre-order! If you’ve been enjoying the blend of music deep dives and comics in Another Thought, I think you’ll really love this.

“Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient searches through ambient music's recent history to unearth how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives.”

It’s out November 13, 2025 from Bloomsbury Books. Don’t miss your chance to reserve a copy now.

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