Midnight Radio

C. says it’s better to make tacos at home because we know what’s in them. But I think it’s the not-knowing that makes Taco Bell the spiritual choice. Read the full episode.Tonight's selections gratify me because they aim straight for the pleasure centers and risk looking foolish (especially the Orbital track, even though I slowed it down 220%). Yet they also retain some mystery, perhaps even to themselves, chanting and humming until language becomes a garbled holy tone—from the climactic minute of the xx's "Intro" to a loopy Enya edit to a Byzantine hymn from Father Dionysios Tabakis, a 52-year-old priest who dropped one of my favorite albums of the year via the crucial Heat Crimes imprint.Thank you for listening. (And thank you to Martin Essig for encouraging me to read Simon Critchley and Byung-Chul Han.)The xx - Introxx • XL Recordings, 2005 • BandcampWalls - Sunporch (Holy Other Mix)Coracle Remixes • Kompakt, 2012 • BandcampSeraphim - A3London Is Tired of Me • Lost Domain, 2026 • BoomkatDeath in Vegas - GirlsScorpio Rising • Sanctuary Records, 2002Frederic D Oberland & Radwan Ghazi - Squeal of SwineEternal Life No End ليلة ظلماء ملعونة، كحياة طالبيها • Constellation, 2026 • BandcampEnya - Afer Ventus (DNTEL Remix)Enya Mixes • 2010 • BoomkatTears for Fears - Mad World (Midnight Radio Mix)The Hurting • 1982Walls - Burnt SiennaWalls • Kompakt, 2010 • BandcampFather Dionysios Tabakis - ΑΝΑΡΧΟΣ ΘΕΟΣ Βυζαντινά Κάλαντα των Χριστουγέννων σε α΄ήχοParadise Metal • Heat Crimes, 2026 • BoomkatPlacid Angles - Saint AnneCanada • Oathcreations, 2026 • BandcampOrbital - Halcyon and On and On (Midnight Radio Mix)Radiccio • 1993 • BandcampThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Read the full post here. For tonight's episode, Steve sent me a file with selections from some of his favorite songs. He wanted to put together something that would be ideal for a warm afternoon because he's a contrarian who must test the limits of Midnight Radio. Fair enough. Here are the changes I made:Swapped the Topdown Dialectic track he selected for one I like better.Because he's the least self-aggrandizing person I know, it probably didn’t occur to him to include his own music. I’ve fixed this. A song from his Minor Hexachords project appears midway, and I love how the high-gloss majesty of a Burger & Ink classic gives way to "Radians," which shatters the dub techno template into glittery shards.Slowed down the last two songs by 39% and 210% because they sound fantastic this way.And of course, the usual reverb and static. This 44th episode is exactly 44 minutes long, which pleases me. Thank you for listening.Topdown Dialectic - 20170804-220170804 • Aught, 2017 • BandcampFoote/Dickow - Volcano SnailHigh Cube • Geographic North, 2026 • BandcampSa Pa - Ride HighAmbeesh • Short Span, 2025 • BandcampBurger & Ink - ElvismLas Vegas • Harvest, 1996 • BoomkatMinor Hexachords - RadiansBrinkmanship • 2025 • BandcampPaperclip Minimiser - B2II • Peak Oil, 2026 • BandcampGramm - Legends/Nugroove™Personal Rock • Source, 1999 • BandcampVehicular - Vehicular 02 (39% slower)False 5 • False Aralia, 2025 • BandcampKoen Holtkamp - Atmos 01 (210% slower)Atmosfera • Love All Day, 2021 • BandcampThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Read the entire post here. In its common form, nostalgia is a taunt because it fetishes a time that can never be reclaimed. But when dealing with mid-1990s electronica, perhaps it can also be an invitation. To reclaim the energy from a time when dozens of naive albums were inspired by Koyaanisqatsi or the incense-soaked rhythms of Kingsuk Biswas's Bedouin Ascent project. It was a time of creating for its own sake without an eye on any marketplace or notion of virality. Of making things simply because new tools were there. So maybe I’ll just sink into this plush couch with cigarette burns in the cushions while Strange Days plays on mute and someone tells me all about the benefits of globalization and the Information Superhighway.Introduction: Stonecirclesampler, Air Liquide, Mojave 3, assorted radio static, etc.Dr. Atmos & Oliver Lieb - Music to Films Movement VMusic to Films • Fax, 1994Pete Namlook & Richie Hawtin - Silent Intelligence VFrom Within III • Fax, 1997Bedouin Ascent - Mammon [Midnight Radio Edit]Science, Art, and Ritual • Rising High, 1994 • BandcampMassive Attack vs. Mad Professor - Protection (Radiation Ruling the Nation)No Protection • Wild Bunch Records, 1995B12 - Radiophonic WorkshopTime Tourist • Warp, 1996 • BandcampPhotek - T’raenon VersionT’raenon • Op-Art, 1996Bedouin Ascent - Transition RScience, Art, and Ritual • Rising High, 1994 • BandcampMakyo - DevabandhaRasa Bhava • Silent Records, 1996 • BandcampEpilogue: Stonecirclesampler, Patsy Cline, assorted radio static, etc.Now I'm in Minneapolis after a viciously turbulent flight because a snowstorm is on the way. They're talking about 8 to 12 inches. I mention this because Midnight Radio seems to be the only deadline I honor and I'm pressing the button at 11:54pm Central Time. It counts.More importantly, a new version of Spite is available in your local App Store or you can learn more and download it directly here.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Read the full post.I often think about Leonard Cohen's observation that religion is the greatest form of art. When I'm moved by a painting, I am not thinking about its veracity. I do not question whether my emotional response is true.With thoughts like this in my head, I'm grateful that Martin Essig will join us tonight to talk about the history of faith.M. first appeared in episode 23 to tell us that desire is a demon. Because synchronicities abound, he came into my life at a time when I was grappling with the meaning of me, and he was hellbent on making sure I understood symbolic failure and the Lacanian Real. Along the way, he became a reliable friend, ensuring that I never wander too far into doubt or belief but instead learn to enjoy the dance.Tonight M. will discuss animism and disenchantment on top of some songs he selected, several of which I've bludgeoned into unrecognizable shapes. But first, he must answer the Very Special Guest Question.Do you believe in god or any spiritual dimension to the universe?"I guess the real question is: Does God believe in Himself? I prefer a God who isn’t really sure if He exists or not. In all the best religious experiences, nobody’s certain about what’s going on, including and especially God."XDCVR - Psalm 68I Hate That Shit, I Hate All That Shit • Ooh Sounds, 2026 • BandcampLuke Slater - Love (Burial)Love Remixes • Mote Evolver, 2019 • BoomkatSun Electric - Episode VIEpisodes • Detuned, 2026 • BandcampBlawan - 993Nutrition • Ternesc, 2017 • BandcampJürgen Paape - So Weit Wie Noch Nie (Midnight Radio Edit)Total 3 • Kompakt, 2001 • BandcampThe Field - Reflecting Lights (Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Remix)Reflecting Lights Remixe | Kompakt, 2016 | BandcampKakuhan - Kak-JukKAK • Nakid, 2026 • BoomkatPatche - Motorik (60% slower)Patche • Popop, 2023 • BandcampCan - I Want More (500% slower + filtered)Flow Motion • Harvest/Mute, 1976 • BandcampBabe Ruth - The Mexican (21% slower)First Base | Harvest, 1972 | MoreThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Read the full post.I’ll admit, I flew too close to the sun on this one. First off, the Concept series has become such a personal landmark that it’s hard to approach it objectively. Of the 32 songs across these records, I have 23 favorites, which would be a four-hour mix. Eventually I had to turn the process of selection into an exercise in subtraction until I was left with an hour of my favorite bits.Second, I’ve never been good at matching beats. It’s hard and boring. And these songs are phenomenally difficult to mix, filled with analog drift and reversed stutters as if they were designed to ratfuck any crossfade.Thomas Brinkmann’s variations make this even more challenging. He built a custom turntable with two tonearms that had separate outputs for the left and right channels. By splitting the stereo field across two needles in the same groove, unexpected rhythms and phase shifts emerged, creating what Brinkmann described this as "a little intervention and displacement of elements.”There's a lot of displacement in tonight's tribute: hard cuts, truncated tracks, and rips of static that remind me of late nights in high school when I would futz with the tuner trying to catch a faint signal of the alien sounds from Deep Space Radio.When I listen to Concept series today, I hear the wild sense of play that only emerges from routine and parameters; I think about the commitment to a regular cadence that teaches one to live with imperfect results. Most of all, these tracks succeed because they are a dialogue with the listener: they stake out a rigid framework so expectations can be fucked with. The offset of a snare becomes high drama. A glitched drum or an abrupt silence plays off what I expect to hear.96:01 01:00 96:01 02:00 VR96:05 09:00 96:05 10:00 96:07 13:00 96:08 16:00 96:11 21:00 VR96:12 23:00 96:12 24:00 VRRichie Hawtin - Concept 1 96:12 | BandcampThomas Brinkmann - Concept 1 96 VR | BandcampThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

A very special episode with Candy Chang—read the full post here.Do you believe in god or any spiritual dimension to the universe?“Yes. Watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was my first spiritual experience. It made me feel existentially connected to all of time, space, and life. That feeling pulled me out of despair and it was my first understanding of god: a widescreen kinship.”Bertrand Belin - Choses NouvellesPersona | Cinq 7, 2019Füxa - Dirty DDirty D | Rocket Girl, 2013 | BandcampDamien Jurado & Richard Swift - RadioactivityOther People’s Songs Vol. 1 | Secretly Canadian, 2016 | BandcampCliff Martinez - AbscessThe Knick Soundtrack | Milan, 2014The Cure - Plainsong (Studio Rough Guide Vocal)Disintegration | Fiction Records, 1989 | BoomkatCliff Martinez - Son of PlacentaThe Knick Soundtrack | Milan, 2014A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran (620% slower + filtered / 28% slower)A Flock of Seagulls | Jive, 1982Peter Schilling - Major Tom (Völlig Losgelöst)Error in the System | Elektra, 1982Belong - Perfect LifeCommon Era | Kranky, 2011 | BandcampBrian Reitzell & RJ Manning Jr. - On the SubwayLost in Translation Soundtrack | Emperor Norton, 2003 Aural Indifference - The ParkThe Sound of Indifference | Minimal Wave, 1981 | BandcampAir - Au Fond du Rêve Doré (150% slower + filtered)Love 2 | Astralwerks, 2009Also worth noting: this 40th episode of Midnight Radio is exactly 40:40. As always, synchronicities abound. Thank you for listening.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Read the full post with notes on the lectio divina.I'm writing this on a Vienna-bound airplane. A full moon shines over the Atlantic, which is roiling away down there in the dark, and I suppose I'm inside a piece of deadly hardware.I've been keeping a simple journal where I try to write a sentence about my life each day even though I sometimes forget. But I'm hoping to remember in Vienna, where C. and I will visit the Venus of Willendorf, Bruegel's Tower of Babel, and Giuseppe Arcimboldo's 16th-century fever dreams.I love flying at night, cocooned in a netherworld beyond space and time, and tonight we'll listen to the music that has been soundtracking this sensation. This hour-long installment kicks off with a synthesizer chorus from Richie Hawtin's 1993 debut as F.U.S.E. Then comes a soulful slab of dub techno that my friend Earl casually sent me the other day, which bleeds into a wonderfully fuzzy track from A New Line (Related)—the territory between cozy and spectral is tough to locate, but these two songs live in its downtown. Then we'll take a cold plunge into some deep winter chug with slow-motion glaciers from Monolake, cv313, and the Field (god, those drums at the 41:40 mark).F.U.S.E. - Night DriveDimension Intrusion | Plus 8, 1993 | BandcampMy Friend Earl - Snowblow2026 | BandcampA New Line (Related) - Crewe AwayCrewe Away | Sound in Silence, 2025 | BandcampMonolake - Cyan (44% slower)Hong Kong | Chain Reaction, 1997 | BandcampTropic of Cancer - Dive (Wheel of the Law)The Sorrow Of Two Blooms | Blackest Ever Black, 2014 | Boomkat The Field - Leave It (31% slower)Yesterday and Today | Kompakt, 2009 | Bandcampcv313 - Beyond the Clouds Reprise II (19% slower)Beyond the Clouds (Reprised) | Echospace [Detroit], 2011 | BandcampWe return to land with a brief pitched-down snippet of Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" because I really enjoyed The Bone Temple.A quick shout-out to M for introducing me to Critchley, the lectio divina, and many other new flows of intensity. And a tremendous thank you to everybody who has been testing Spite and taking time to send such helpful feedback. I'm genuinely shocked and delighted by the interest in this grouchy mp3 player—there are 38 beta testers noThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Mike Doyle is here with us tonight to inaugurate the First Very Special Guest Episode of Midnight Radio.“Hi, I’m Mike. I’ve been a culture enthusiast my whole life. Obsessed with learning and sharing, my dream job was to be a magazine editor. I DJ’d my junior high dances and was editor of my high school newspaper, which led to co-founding the DJ groups Dorkwave and Dethlab, and the blog Burnlab, and contributing to design sites Core77 and Archinect when the internet was exciting. I’m also an exhibit designer, designed albums for Solvent and Matthew Dear for Ghostly International, and produced music events in Detroit because nobody else would fly artists like MOTOR and Vitalic at the time.At the Godspeed You! Black Emperor show in Detroit recently, James asked if I’d like to do a guest mix for Midnight Radio. I was thrilled, but wanted it to be collaborative: I’d submit a playlist and James would do his editing magic. And here we are.”And here’s the question I will ask all Midnight Radio guests: Do you believe in god or any spiritual dimension to the universe? Please describe your metaphysics in 150 words or less.To which Mike replied, “Do I believe in God? No. Not the Christian god that’s watching you masturbate. I am fascinated by the invisible forces of the universe. If I could choose a superpower, it would be to see, hear, and feel all the waves outside the visible and audible spectrums.”With new waves in mind, here are some songs he loves.Liars - No. 1 Against the RushWIXIW | Mute, 2012 | BandcampCold Cave - Double Lives in Single BedsLove Comes Close | Heartworm Press, 2009 | BandcampTelefon Tel Aviv - You are the Worst Thing in the WorldImmolate Yourself | BPitch Control, 2009 | BandcampThe Horrors - Sea Within a SeaPrimary Colours | XL Recordings, 2009ERAAS - FangERAAS | Felte, 2012 | Bandcamp Adult. - Tonight We FallThe Way Things Fall | Ghostly International, 2013 | BandcampA Place to Bury Strangers - Love Reaches Out (GIFT/Reality Delay Mixes)See Through You Rerealized | 2023 | BandcampThis mix has become an ideal companion for cold January night drives and early morning runs. I’m so glad Mike reminded me of ERAAS, who produced some of the sleekest yet underrated synthpop I’ve heard. He selected “Briar Path” but I made an eleventh-hour switch to “Fang” because it’s a personal favorite and I wanted to loop its drums.Also swapped in a couple of remixes that transform "Love Reaches Out" into an M83-style anthem that delivers some good advice for surviving what looks to be another dreadful year: Love reaches out to everyone, not as much as it'd like to, but you gotta keep the dream alive. There’s something very satisfying to me about the fact that this mix is exactly 33 minutes and 33 secThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Three songs that possess the righteously serene energy I fantasize about cultivating in the first minutes of a new year. Then the actual year starts happening. But playing this mix each morning should keep the dream alive. Read the full post.Kali Malone - Spectacle of RitualThe Sacrificial Code | Ideal Recordings, 2019 | BandcampAbul Mogard - Desires Are Reminiscences By NowThe Sky Had Vanished | Ecstatic, 2015 | BandcampAutechre - VLetrmx21 (65% slower)Garbage | Warp, 1995 | BandcampThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Here in the Middle West, we’ve already enjoyed two excellent snowstorms, which augurs well for a proper winter. Although the year is winding down, the future is still coming fast and dumb. The people in charge are hellbent on giving us artificially intelligent colleagues and companions, and they’re banking on a heavy assumption: that we value the sense of a relationship more than a living person. That we will privilege the feeling over the fact. They might not be wrong. For the past year, C. and I have been playing with a scenario that gives this fork some teeth. Read it here.* * *The first seven songs are table-setting for Me-Sheen’s “Sonic Lullaby,” one of the most beautiful songs in my canon. I came across it in 1997 on one of those ponderous “Excursions in Ambience” CDs with hellacious cover art and it’s been living in my head ever since. But first we kick off with Julianna Barwick’s “Prizewinning”, a song that’s somehow lulling and thrilling at once. It never fails to leave me cheering and C. plays it all the time, so it’s definitely a winner. There’s also a spiritualized vocoder workout from Matchess, a nugget of AM radio gold, and a powerful burst of dub techno from Vril—I hope to be reincarnated as the low-end whir on “Infinitum Eternis Anime” and join the rings of Saturn.And tonight there’s plenty of reverb to carry us into the holidays, along with fragments of some 1950s Welsh miners singing carols because I’m feeling festive.Julianna Barwick - PrizewinningThe Magic Place | Asthmatic Kitty, 2011 | BandcampMatchess - Bellum Omnium Contra OmnesSacracorpa | Trouble in Mind, 2018 | BandcampVril - Infinitum Eternis AnimeAnima Mundi | Delsin, 2018 | BandcampAir - Le Soleil Est Près de Moi (28% slower)Premiers Symptômes | Parlophone, 1997Eagles - I Can't Tell You Why (20% slower)The Long Point | Asylum Records, 1979Voices From the Lake - MaxLive at MAXXI, 2015 | BandcampMe-Sheen - Sonic LullabyElectronic Membrain | Reflective, 1995Rhos Male Voice Choir: Psalm 23 / Holy Night + Vril loopCarols From The Welsh Mines, 1958 | MoreFor upbeat holiday music, please attend last year’s Professional Holiday Party.Thank you for listening.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Like my thoughts on egg foo young and tornados, tonight’s broadcast is all over the map—but I’m increasingly fond of intensely personal playlists that ratfuck the algorithm. We kick off with a Breakfast Club anthem pitched down into Sisters of Mercy gloom, followed by a heavy slice of Detroit electro I bought in '95 and played to death, entranced by its bottomless growl. Years later, I heard this track on a compilation CD and realized it was meant to be played at 45rpm. This might be the godhead of my passion for slowing things down, and the ritual continues with a song from ’74 that reminds me of my parents’ kitchen and the big romance they had when they were young. Then comes a dub techno staple that sounds like a beautiful machine at 40% speed, which gives way to a Swans track I love. It came to mind after reading Adam Greenfield’s delightful piece about wanting to eat God while watching them perform—and I discovered “Leaving Meaning” degrades into a lovely ambient song if you fiddle with the equalizer and douse it in reverb. Then we head to heartbeat city, here we come.Simple Minds - Don’t You Forget About Me (38% slower)The Breakfast Club | 1985 | MoreWill Web - Spacewalk (30% slower)Cosmic Driveby | Direct Beat, 1995The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe (20% slower)Hollies | EMI, 1974Vladislav Delay - Huone (46% slower)Multila | Chain Reaction, 2000 | BandcampSwans - Leaving Meaning (20% slower)Leaving Meaning | Mute, 2019 | BandcampPole - Hafen (40% slower)2 | Kliff/Matador, 1999 | BandcampAphex Twin - #1 (Cliffs) (42% slower)Selected Ambient Works II | Warp, 1994 | BandcampThe Cars - Jacki (31% slower)Heartbeat City | Elektra, 1984Thank you for listening.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

An ode to Michael Clayton and the giddy renewal before death. Read the full post."I took a deep, cleansing breath and I put that notion aside. I tabled it. I said to myself, As clear as this may be, as potent a feeling as this is, as true a thing as I believe I have witnessed today, it must wait. It must stand the test of time. And Michael, the time is now."So the hour has come for some Tom Wilkinson and George Clooney interlaced with five pieces of profound bass and machine grind. And plenty of amniotic, embryonic reverb.Try to make believe this is not just madness because this is not just madness.Richie Hawtin + Thomas Brinkmann - 96:12/24:00 VRConcept | 1998 | BandcampAs potent a feeling as this is, as true a thing as I believe I witnessed today, it must wait. It must stand the test of time.HTRK - Poison (Mika Vainio Remix)Ghostly International, 2013 | BandcampYes, the nudity in the parking lot was a mistake, I admit it. It was wrong. It was lame. It was obvious. And therapeutically, it was completely useless.TM404 - 202/303/303/303/606/606Kontra, 2013 | BandcampIs that the correct answer to the multiple choice of me?Tropic of Cancer - Stop SufferingBlackest Ever Black, 2015 | BoomkatWhat makes this feel good is that I don’t know where this goes.µ-Ziq - Peppermint AeroManzana | Balmat, 2025 | BandcampYou think you got the horses for that? Well good luck and god bless.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

The clocks roll back an hour tonight, and it’s my favorite moment of the year. Not only does it bring the night closer, it reminds me that if we can rearrange time, we can do anything we want. Invent new colors. Remove days from the week. Reset the internet to 2009. Have a functional government. Changing the clocks should be the year’s biggest holiday with fireworks, parades, and gift-giving.Tonight’s soundtrack harmonizes with this idea of time. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been smudging my favorite mid-century vocals across a heartbeat drum and some loops that were trapped in my delay pedal. The result is an hour-long soundtrack composed for Grace Wang’s photography exhibition, The Heart Has Not Stopped, at Clark Centre for the Arts in Toronto.“Through dreamlike, layered images created with in-camera multiple exposures on film, Wang evokes fleeting moments of memory and time—an intimate meditation on a world both beautiful and unknowable.” The show runs through November 30. (If you can't make it, you can look at some of Grace's photos here.)Grace’s images combine the haze of memory with the shock of color and unexpected overlays that edge toward the spectral. I tried to capture this sensation by letting bursts of Patsy Cline, Rebekah Del Rio, Nancy Sinatra, The Platters, Yao Su-jung, Roy Orbison, and other familiar voices gradually unfurl. In addition to these samples, the final track was built from tape loops, pitched-down field recordings, and a couple of selections from the excellent Echospace sound library.Thank you for listening.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

I spent my high school nights making cassette loops, hunched over the guts of a disemboweled Maxell, splicing bits of brown magnetic tape and piecing everything back together with a jeweler’s screwdriver. I remember the purple-black energies that burbled at the back of my mind, the shimmery thoughts that take hold while intently making something.Thirty years later, I suppose I’m doing this again with Midnight Radio, only now I’m stitching together songs in an overheated and disembodied world I wouldn't have recognized back then.Read the full post.We kick off with some slow-motion Slowdive. When I asked my friend S. if it sounded cool or cursed, he said "Both." Then comes a slow variant of a track from Belong's stone classic, Common Era, which towers above Loveless and Souvlaki when it comes to gazeability.Autechre's "Bronchusevenmx24" sounds like the heat shimmer on the horizon when the pavement warps and boils, a mirage that Italian sailors called vecchie signore che balla: old ladies dancing. The ladies are even more visible when it’s slowed down. And moving through the shimmer to fourth century Ethiopia, liturgies in the Christian church were accompanied by the benega, a stringed instrument "given to king David by God, and brought to Ethiopia by Menelik I, together with the Ark of the Covenant." But the singer's voice is the true instrument here, offering a fragile melody that brings to mind the thoughts of a kid taking apart cassette tapes. And finally, a chilled cup of stone tea with an excerpt from one of Stephen Hitchell's hour-long excursions before we wind down with some drowsy My Bloody Valentine.Slowdive - Machine Gun (50% slower)Souvlaki, 1993 • MoreBelong - A Walk (22% slower)Common Era • BandcampSlowdive - Mousakka Chaos (20% slower)Souvlaki, 1993Autechre - Bronchusevenmx24 (25% slower)Garbage, 1995 • BandcampSosena Gebre Eyesus - Save Us From Our DeathThe World Is But a Place of Survival: Begena Songs from Ethiopia | Bandcampcv313 - Depths of Perception (Excerpt)Depths of Perception, 2022 | MoreMy Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow (45% slower)Loveless, 1991 | MoreMy Bloody Valentine - Instrumental B1988, featuring a Public Enemy sample | MoreDusted with static and murmurations from Spiritualized, Dean Martin, and always and forever, Nancy Sinatra. The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

It’s the first of October but the weather is all wrong. Here in the Middle West, it’s been endless sunshine with temperatures twenty degrees above normal. Meanwhile, our government shut down last night because we’re ruled by bullies and cowards who’ve been brainwormed by the internet. Each day brings inventive forms of idiocy and degradation. Feels like something’s got to give but nothing does.So I’m looking elsewhere for reason. Read the full post.* * *Even though it’s far too warm for the first of October, the night continues to inch closer, which means it’s chromatic season.The Chromatics have always been an unlikely proposition for me. I prefer my songs scuzzy and reverberated, whereas their music is so sleek and glossy it’s almost lacquered. It’s pop music from a neon world where Ruth Radelet’s frigid voice sings fabulous things like my leather glove grips the wheel. In 2017, they appeared on Twin Peaks before abruptly disbanding for reasons I don’t care to discover. Aside from rattling around the algorithms of streaming services, they've become a ghost—it's impossible to buy their music, and their Bandcamp and record label websites lead to 404s.During their ten-year run, the Chromatics released only three proper albums but my library has over 250 songs. Drumless versions. Extended mixes. 8-track versions. Alternate takes for fictional movies. The same instrumentals reappear with different vocals and new titles. All these variations leave me wondering about the line between chasing perfection and forever relitigating the past. As if adjusting the variables enough times will finally yield the Platonic synthpop song. All of which makes finding their best tracks a daunting task, so I’ve made a megamix of ten favorites, including three of their covers.If you like the Chromatics, this is the place to be tonight. And if not, even better: hopefully you’ll start.Lady Night Drive (Cherry, 2012)The Page (Kill for Love, 2012)Stiff as a Board (Faded Now, 2020)Running up that Hill (Night Drive, 2007)The Sound of Silence (Closer to Grey, 2020)Back from the Grave (Kill for Love, 2012)Yes (Symmetry Remix) (Love Theme from Lost River, 2007)Headlight’s Glare (Night Drive, 2007)Disintegration (Running from the Sun, 2012)Into the Black (Kill for Love, 2012)The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Five favorite songs released in 2025. Also includes bits of Rebekah Del Rio and David Bowie, along with the optimal dosage of static and reverb.Biosphere - The Way of TimeThe Way of Time | 2025 | BandcampRomance - Leave Her to HeavenLove Is Colder Than Death | 2025 | BandcampMinor Hexachords - Minor ConcessionBrinkmanship | 2025 | BandcampSa Pa - NonspirationAmbeesh | 2025 | BandcampRue des Garderies - Jiddu2025 | BandcampRead the full post.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Tonight's episode compresses two and a half hours of dream chatter into twenty-three minutes that drift in and out of focus like dreams tend to do.Abul Mogard - Staring at the Sweeps of the DesertWorks | Ecstatic, 2016 | BandcampBlack Polygons - IncarnatSilence | 2014 | BandcampSeefeel - Rupt (Cut Mix)Rupt and Flex | Warp, 1995 | BandcampTransient Waves - SoulspaceTransient Waves | i, 1997 | BandcampIntrusion - Love in Lofi (Remastered by Pole)Unreleased Tape Sessions, 2025 | BandcampRead the full post.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

A quick and knotty mixtape I made for tomorrow morning’s run, built from my favorite songs for lumbering along the river this summer—and lumber is the operative word. Laced with static and fried chatter, these tracks move like I do: sighing and lurching like a tired beast. But wait until the bass hits at the 41-second mark. It makes living in 2025 feel worthwhile. Sixsixsevenfortyseven’s Wounded Dogs is one of my favorite albums this year, a low-frequency exercise in patience, just like running or any repetitive act that hunts for freedom through repetition. An Egyptian low-rider comes next, followed by some metropolitan Detroit sleaze. This sequence lopes along until we get to Drissi El-Abbassi belting from the 1980s in Algeria. Look at this album cover. He was born to make us sweat. But his voice gets shredded by Autechre’s “Clipper” as we drop into more frigid and fractured terrain before winding down with a touch of Digital Underground. Here’s the hyperlink to tonight’s broadcast, or listen below.I often think about this line from Richard Powers’s Orfeo: “Make the music that you need, for need will be over, soon enough.” Read the full post.Sixsixsevenfortyseven - I Stood ThereWounded Dogs | Youth, 2025 | BandcampJana & El Nashmy - 3al BayezPlace: Egypt | Air Texture, 2025 | BandcampErika - Tomorrow’s Fires (Whodat Remix)Anevite Void Remixed | Interdimensional Transmissions, 2025 | BandcampDVA Damas - Wet Vision IIWet Vision | Downwards, 2015 | BoomkatDrissi El-Abbassi - Zedti Laadab AliyaNashazphone | BandcampAutechre - ClipperTri Repetae | Warp, 1995 | BandcampBroken English Club - Prayer SpaceSuburban Hunting | Cititrax, 2015 | BandcampPlastikman - ContainConsumed | Minus, 1998 | BandcampThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

When I moved to Ohio last year, I didn’t expect to become fascinated by death drives, desire, and demonology. There are several reasons for this trajectory—such as living in the Year of Our Lord 2025—but a primary force is my friend M.M. rolls heavy. There’s not much small talk with him. Doesn’t matter who you are—interact with him for five minutes and you’ll be reckoning with Lacanian lack or, if there’s a shift in the light, perhaps Deleuzian notions of new inflows of creativity and intensity. He’s pushed my thinking into new terrain, and he’s with us tonight to pull hammers, snakes, money, and Samara from The Ring into the zone where desire and demons meet.Here’s how tonight’s audio came to be: M. asked if I wanted to do a podcast, and I said no because podcasts are annoying and I don’t need more media in my life. He showed up with microphones anyway, and we recorded a conversation, after which I deleted myself and left his side of the discussion intact.M’s thoughts on the horror of insatiable desire offer some strategies for dealing with the unruly self. It also sounds like an accurate diagnosis of the current American moment.No matter how many lists I make, there’s something within me that will never be comfortable or understood—and this is how it should be. But here’s a list anyway:Ghost Dubs - Chemical (18% slower)Damaged | Pressure, 2024 | BandcampPole - Berlin1 | Matador, 1998 | BandcampMMMD - EgoismoEgoismo | Antifrost, 2019 | BandcampBiosphere - Houses on the HillShenzhou | Touch, 2002 | BandcampBasic Channel - Radiance I (31% slower)Basic Channel, 1994 | BoomkatHeathered Pearls - Beach Shelter (Loscil Grind Remix)Loyal Reworks | Ghostly International, 2013 | BandcampKeith - Flob Gob (Jukebox Mix)Pernod Parks Productions, 2025 | BandcampRod Modell - Forester ParkVibrasound: The Deepchord Years 1999-2004Civilistjävel! - A2Järnnätter | Felt, 2022 | BandcampThomas Brinkmann - MaschineTotes Rennen | Supposé, 1998 | BandcampTonight’s episode opens with some heavyweight dub to introduce M., and when he finishes speaking, we’ll test the limits of repetition by listening to Thomas Brinkmann’s intensive loop of a vocal from Blixa Bargeld. And here’s a partial list of the audio files of M. if you’d like a roadmap:M Saturated Spew.m4aM Broken Hammer.m4aM Making a Clearing.m4aM Demon Mother Desire.m4aM You Want Your Mother to Feed You.m4aM Insatiable Serial KillerThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Some of tonight’s songs are about heaven, some are about hell, and perhaps this is what all dreams are ultimately about. Listen to Charlie Megira’s guitar, more alive and determined than his voice, grasping for something we know but cannot define. An Israeli guitarist whose life was brief and tragic, Megira was “a mold-breaking artist who disintegrated while we were all staring at our phones.” In the final minute of ‘Tomorrow’s Gone’, I like to think he’s saying “my heart to heaven” even though he’s singing in Hebrew. It makes a nice transition to Midwife, who reminds us that the hounds of heaven run like hell.Charlie Megira - Tomorrow’s GoneDa Abtomatic Meisterzinger Mambo Chic | 2001 | BandcampMidwife & Vyva Melinkolya - Hounds of HeavenOrbweaving | Heaven Metal, 2023 | BandcampEnsemble Economique - Your Lips Against MineMelt Into Nothing | Denovali, 2014 | BandcampWindy & Carl - LighthouseDrawing of Sound | Blue Flea, 1996 | BandcampFüxa - Dreamlanding3 Field Rotation | Mind Expansion, 1995 | BandcampRead the full post with a complete inventory of dreams.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

I began to feel pleasantly haunted, finding information in the static, a hymnal in the hiss as I carved two hours down to the eighteen minutes we have before us now. Here are the ingredients:A drum loop from Woob’s “Odonna” (Woob 1194, 1994 | More)Goma ritual chants, tape hiss, static, and fifty-two pounds of reverb.Hiroshi Yoshimura – Adelaide (Flora, 1987 | Bandcamp)Some in-house synthesizers and a kick drum that, late at night, sounds like something knocking from the other side of the veil.Perhaps demons are ready for a reboot. The grifters, faith-dealers, dead-eyed influencers, and screamers are stripping our world for parts, and we crave justice—not the justice of our rickety institutions, but something cosmic that assures us the universe can balance itself. Read the full post.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

When visiting a Taoist temple, you enter through the east door, the mouth of the dragon, which is good luck. After performing your rituals and prayers, you exit through the west, the deadly mouth of the tiger, because now you’re protected from danger. Never enter through the middle door. That’s for gods.In 2016, the NYC-based guitarist Hewson Chen discovered the homesick ballads his father recorded after emigrating from Taiwan. He set them to music and called it Taiwanese Folk Style, and it’s a remarkable collaboration across generations—and one of the most delightful albums I’ve heard in years.Two weeks ago, my friend P. turned me on to Yu Ching, a Taiwanese musician who serves chilled shots of shoegaze. I’ve also been steeping myself in Alex Zhang Hungtai’s extensive catalog, especially his work as Dirty Beaches, a patron saint of Death Prom.So tonight’s episode is dedicated to the Taiwan-related music that has been soundtracking my slow rainy runs along the Tansui River, where clouds are draped over the mountains on the horizon, and all of those ancient landscape scrolls suddenly make perfect sense. I also realized that the pylons of the interstate looked like Shinto shrines before I accidentally ran up the exit ramp. But they don’t make landscape scrolls about that.High walls surround the Confucian temple because you must work for the knowledge within.Yu Ching - LoveThe Crystal Hum | Night School, 2024 | Bandcamp姚苏蓉 (Yao Su-jung) - 磁性的迷惑 (Magnetic Seduction)MMI, 1969 | MoreJames Chen - Summer in TaiwanTaiwanese Folk Style | Moon Glyph, 2016 | BandcampDirty Beaches - Low Rider / I Dream in NeonCassette/Drifters | Zoo Music, 2008/2012 | BandcampJames Chen - Don’t Be DiscouragedTaiwanese Folk Style | Moon Glyph, 2016 | BandcampYu Ching - 桑桑 (Sun Sun)Planetes Records, 2024 | BandcampAlex Zhang Hungtai & Tseng Kuo Hung - Ten SwordsLongone | 2020 | BandcampAlso contains the sounds of elderly people doing circulatory exercises in Da’an Park, the recording from an aggressive ice cream vendor, and the usual bits of static and tuning. And as always, plenty of reverb.Read the full post here.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

A tribute to David Lynch that roams through ruined ballads and slow-motion noir. Busted machinery bleeds through the walls and if you listen closely, the Woodsman will remind you which is the water and which is the well. Read the full post.Angelo Badalamenti - Laura Palmer’s ThemeTwin Peaks, 1990 | MoreRebekah Del Rio - LlorandoMulholland Drive, 2001 | MoreDean Hurley - Night Electricity ThemeAnthology Resource Vol. 1 | Twin Peaks: The Return, 2017 | BandcampBohren & Der Club of Gore - Constant FearBlack Earth | Wonder, 2002 | MoreRoy Orbison - CryingRCA Victor, 1961 | MoreBobby Vinton - Blue VelvetEpic, 1963 | MoreChris Isaak - Wicked Game (23% slower)Reprise, 1989 | MoreThe Paris Sisters - I Love How You Love MeGregmark, 1961 | MoreJulee Cruise - FallingFloating Into the Night, 1989 | Three DemosAngelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks ThemeTwin Peaks, 1990 | MoreRoy Orbison - In Dreams (20% slower)Monument Records, 1963 | MoreRod Modell + Taka Noda - Untitled 2Glow World | Silentes, 2024 | BandcampThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Lately I’ve been pondering a line from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal: “I often wonder why people torment themselves as soon as they can.” It’s an excellent question without an easy answer.TM404 - 202/303/303/303/606/606 (43% slower)TM 404 | Kontra-Musik, 2013 | BandcampTopdown Dialectic - A4 (44% slower)S/T | Peak Oil, 2018 | BandcampEchospace - Aequinoxium/Sunset/Abraxas (48% slower)The Coldest Season | Modern Love, 2008 | BoomkatVon Schommer - Wuerfel/Wuerfel Version (45% slower)Deepchord, 2000 | BandcampIMAX - Concorde (47% slower)Deepchord, 2000 | BandcampAlso includes snippets from Joy Division, Depeche Mode, Leonard Cohen, Yazoo, Skeeter Davis, Rebekah Del Rio, and 10cc. (The moment at the eight-minute mark when a Joy Division fragment lands on a half-speed synth is my favorite thing yet in these fifteen mixes.)Listen below, or here’s a premium executive mp3 you can play while you ponder whether or not to root for this asteroid.Read the full post.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

1.The first housecats in ancient Egypt gradually discovered they received more attention from their owners when their meows mimicked a human baby’s cry. Today, birds mimic police sirens and chainsaws, and artificial intelligence is probably harvesting these videos for b-roll footage and ambient soundscapes designed to wake us up at an optimal hour. Someday, we might no longer understand what is echoing what.2.When I was growing up, my mom often told me that perfectionism was my worst trait. I took this as a compliment because I was young and arrogant. Who wouldn’t want to be a perfectionist? Three decades and so many missed opportunities later, I can’t tell you how many times I look up at the ceiling—or wherever my mom’s ghost might be—to tell her she was so damned right.3.There’s a song called “Lali Lale”—upbeat and a little seductive, the singer’s voice autotuned for a hypnotic effect. Although she sings in a language I do not understand, the intent is clear: to speak to the limbic, to make the listener feel cool and sleek. But in the middle of a verse, she breaks into laughter. Her laugh is not calculated or cool; it’s awkward and nervous, the sound of someone breaking character. I like to imagine the moment in the studio when she glances at the faces behind the mixing board to do another take. Instead, they tell her to keep going, keep rolling. So she gets back to the beat, and now the song has become truly alive, a document of the unpredictable, an artifact of the genuinely human.This song is the last track in tonight’s mix, and the laughter at the 28:51 mark is one of my favorite moments in the music I listened to in 2024. Messes and accidents, weird typos and blurts of laughter—these things feel more essential now that everything is increasingly filtered, auto-suggested, and optimized.Embrace the fragment. Cultivate collisions. Bring the residue to the forefront.And residue is how tonight’s broadcast begins: I excavated the vocal dregs from last year’s mixes to usher in one of my favorite songs, Wolfgang Voigt’s off-kilter loop of T. Rex and Roxy Music, which I like to play first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Then I’ve paired Nancy Sinatra with some bass, static, and a kick drum that I scraped out of an old file. The third track is a terribly-named song by a terribly-named band, but the music itself is an ideal way to start the year in easy mode. Love, Inc - Life’s a GasForce Inc, 1996 | MoreNancy Sinatra - Bang Bang (Midnight Radio Static Mix)Japancakes - Handguns & FirearmsBliss Out Vol. 19: Belmondo | Darla, 2002 | MoreChantssss - SwanShyness | Theory Therapy, 2024 | MoreDjNiraha & Lale Pishmari - Lali LaleKorgMusic2024DemoEL​-​HELL​-​EΛ | Heat Crimes, 2024 | MoreThe request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

As another exhausting and demented year comes to a merciful end, we’ve earned a little fun.Here are five joyous songs that make me smile whenever I hear them. Three of these tracks are thirty years old; the other two are pushing twenty-five—these are nostalgic songs, and I hope you’ll enjoy revisiting them. Or better yet, having a first encounter.Mike Dunn - God Made Me PhunkyMD-Express, 1994Possibly the most righteous loop ever made: built from a piano that burrows its way into your soul and makes a very nice home for Mike Dunn to sound like the coolest earthling to ever spend time on this planet. SoleTech - Sole WavesDetrechno, 1994 | MoreThis track is both ridiculous and also the best-ever use of a Kraftwerk sample. In the summer of ’94, “chuck chuck” earwormed everyone in the metropolitan Detroit area and improbably became the most requested song on the radio for a few weeks, which might be the easiest way to explain to someone why Detroit is a very special place. It also prepared me for my encounters with the Electrifying Mojo, Deep Space Radio, and Basic Channel.Detroit Grand Pubahs - If Snow Was BlackIntuit Solar, 1999One of the most underrated songs I know, this track sounds like the steam that billows from Detroit’s streets on a subzero January night, and Paris the Black Fu’s voice will live in your head all winter if you’re lucky: If snow was black, I’d wear black shades and drive a black car. I’d smoke black cigarettes and hide in the shadows…Quarks - I Walk (Superpitcher Schaffel Mix)Kompakt, 2002 | MoreWe were in our early twenties, logging time at Other Music, Kim’s, Tonic, and the Bunker—and music-wise, Komapkt reigned supreme. We didn’t try to emulate their sound, but they reminded us that electronic music could be monumental and fun, and this is a lesson I still carry into my writing and other personal pursuits: I’d better be having a good time because I’m sure as hell not doing it for the money.Basic Channel - Phylyps Trak IIChain Reaction, 1994 | MoreIn January of ’95, I snuck out alone to St. Andrew’s Hall to check out a hip-hop show I’ve long since forgotten. But I remember the militant thump thump that drew me upstairs to the dark third floor with windows that overlooked the city. I’d never seen humanity like this: club kids in overalls, drag queens in chartreuse wigs, a man in a three-piece suit, all lock-stepping in a perfect grid, their heads bowed before the bassbin like an altar, which soon I learned it was.The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.

It’s late summer, and everything is overgrown and looks obscene. Trees sag, their leaves are tired, and the grass is scorched. The night hums with creatures I cannot identify—frogs or crickets, maybe, or possibly the power lines. Even though the news continues to break at an alarming speed, these are sluggish days, and I’m doing my best to match their rhythm and collect my thoughts while I wait for the blessed relief of autumn.The sound of distant traffic shushing through late-night rain might be one of the most relaxing sounds I know. The same goes for a drowsy radio talking about light drizzle at the airport. But my favorite soundtrack for contemplation is slow-motion techno.Over the years, slowing down my favorite songs has become a spiritual practice, and I’ve come here tonight to preach the poetics of pitched-down electronics. It’s a rebellion against time, a way to slow down the clock and peek into its gears. There is fascinating information in the heartbeat of a half-speed machine: gunk and grain, the unexpected pleasure of negative space. When I die, I’d like to spend eternity nestled in the bass of Pole’s "Modul". Until then, the best I can do is slow it down and make it last a little longer. And so this episode of Midnight Radio is devoted to the glory of slow-motion machinery, featuring five all-time favorites from the 1990s stretched out until they’re nice and roomy. For me, hearing the title track from Plastikman’s landmark Consumed at half-speed feels like a revelation.Ventriloquism began as a religious practice. The word comes from Latin for “speak from the stomach”: venter (belly) and loqui (speak). The ancients believed the sounds produced by the belly belonged to the dead, and the ventriloquist would interpret these growls and grumbles because people thought they told the future. So who’s to say what’s spiritual today?Tonight's mix is below, or you can download it here. It's doused in plenty of reverb and sprinkled with some doo-wop and torch songs by Nancy Sinatra, Ricky Nelson, Skeeter Davis, the Ronettes, and the Righteous Brothers. (Here's a Spotify playlist if you'd like to hear the original songs at their normal speed.)Richie Hawtin - 07 13-00 (54% slower)Concept 1 | 1996 | MorePole - Modul (56% slower)1 | Matador, 1998 | MoreAutechre - Yulquen (48% slower)Amber | Warp, 1994 | MoreBasic Channel - Radiance II (44% slower)Radiance | Basic Channel, 1994 | MorePlastikman - Consumed (50% slower)Consumed | Minus, 1998 | MoreThese five songs rewired my brain when I first heard them 25 years ago, back when I had faith in the Information Superhighway and the new millennium. What will my nostalgia look like 25 years from now? I try to imagine myself as an old man, telling the kids about the good old days when every street corner had a Chase bank and a CVS, how we The request lines are open.Enjoy life and get the full Midnight Radio experience delivered directly to your inbox ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month.