Deep Voices: Night Drive Music
11 songs, medium moody, perfect for Volvos
Deep Voices #53 on Spotify
Deep Voices #53 on Apple Music
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I have sleep apnea, which in short means that when I sleep my throat closes up a little and each time it does, I wake up just a little. People with sleep apnea may not consciously perceive that they’re waking up, but their brains do, and so you never settle into deep sleep. If this is unfamiliar, imagine a night where you toss and turn, and then imagine that’s your whole life.
Sleep apnea is a largely undiagnosed condition, but after being exhausted forever, I had a couple overnight sleep tests and ultimately prescribed a CPAP machine to combat the condition. It’s a mask you strap to your face overnight connected to a tube that heats up water into vapor and shoves it into your nose, forcing your throat open, and thus minimizing your wake ups. Wearing the mask has generally helped, and while I would gladly nap every day given the opportunity, my overall sluggishness has ebbed.
The one place I do still get nervous about my exhaustion level is in the car. People with sleep apnea often nod off behind the wheel, especially while stuck in traffic. I prefer to drive during the day, when the sun is out and my chances of needing to pull over and doze are minimal. But since my son was born, my wife and I have found that driving in the evening, when he is ready for bed, is more manageable than driving during the day, where he is apt to scream the whole ride. So for short drives, I suck it up and get behind the wheel after dark. (Allegra, born and raised in Manhattan, is one of those city kids who never got a license.)
Last week we headed out to visit her parents in Long Island. Because the sun goes down earlier now, it was the first time I was going to make that trip in the evening. So in addition to downing a Red Bull, I made a playlist I was excited about.
In 2006, the British producer Burial released a song called “Night Bus.” It’s essentially an interlude on his debut album, a formless drift of a song given power by the wordless vocals that briefly surface. It’s a ghostly two minutes. A few years later, the Canadian musician CFCF borrowed that song title for the first in a series of mixes of slow boiled, murky music, meant to reflect the experience Burial tried to crystalize, riding home on the bus after a night out, the kind of bleak moment that achieves poignancy when viewed from a distance.
I thought about that song and those mixes while making this one. I didn’t want poignancy, I just didn’t want to fall asleep. I tried to include songs with nooks and crannies I would want to follow with my ear as I drove. Not songs that would perk me up because of their poppiness, but because of the way they fluttered from the speakers. I love categorizing music by feeling, superseding the idea of genre with one of texture, not style. The songs on here are similar but different, cousins not siblings. There’s experimentalism, there’s murk, there’s cello, there’s folk, there’s humor, there’s techno, and there’s shoegaze. They’re all good for the evening, if not necessarily for the club. The overall effect is weird and punchy, not poetic, like I imagine looking out the window of a double-decker bus in London after a night out might be. Driving a 2003 Volvo to Long Island with a toddler asleep in the back isn’t quite as cinematic. Or at least it’s a very different movie.
Playlist notes:
My current musical obsession is Lauren Duffus’ brilliantly simple “Soho Road (Crying Song).” Nominally “techno,” it’s maybe better to think of it as a sculpture in the form of a song. As a church organ plays, you hear a decomposing loop of someone sobbing big, heaving sobs. It’s unhinged and brilliant, the kind of idea that comes to you mid-breakdown and snaps you out of whatever has caused you to spiral in the first place. You laugh and then you probably go back to feeling like shit, but at least you get something productive out of it.
I would be remiss not to mention the Parish Council track on here. Or not necessarily the track, though it’s bells akimbo approach is truly excellent, but the album artwork. Which is a drawing of a frog. The album is called A Painting of a Frog. But I think this is done in crayons. The frog has his tongue out, like a happy dog would. Totally in love with this frog. This song is called “The 4 Frog Colors,” which, according to the artwork, are green (body), black (eyes), and red (tongue). Which is only three. There’s blue in the background, I presume as water. I guess that counts.
I have to apologize in advance for including a 16 minute song. Is an hour mix even a mix if a quarter of it is taken up one track? But I’ve been pretty entranced by the entirety of Pub’s 1999 track “Lunch.” The song operates like a techno track, but one sent through a spin cycle. What I love about the song is its nervous energy, its propulsion forward. There’s actually a steady drumbeat, but it’s a mile underwater, so the melody—if you can call it that—leads the charge. It sounds like someone scribbling anxiously. I honestly have no idea if a guitar was involved in this? If it was made entirely on an early Mac? If he recorded it onto a four-track and then lit it on fire?
My friend Daniel released his new album, Concealer, as Relaxer two weeks ago and I, though I am a very biased source, think it rules. We’ve been friends 20 years now and I have loved following his growth as a musician, from Trooper to Black Eyes to Mi Ami to Sex Worker to Ital to Relaxer. He’s always made electric, wild music. If you know him, it’s a good reflection of his brain, which has so many thoughts, so much excitement. So I’ve been naturally drawn to the Concealer track “Narcissus By the Pool,” a meticulously constructed track that, compared to his back catalog, is practically minimalist. It’s crispy on one level, foggy on another, the overall effect is one of listening to cicadas from your window while a movie plays from the other room. I wondered why he named that song after Narcissus, as it struck me as a production well-crafted, meticulous art done from a distance, and less something downloaded straight from a teeming mind. So I asked him:
I was reading about the myth of Narcissus and was struck by the act of gazing & flowering. In the myth, Narcissus is transformed by his own transfixed gazing. Decoupled from its pathological manifestation and the loneliness and heartache that are also part of the myth, it's a remarkable and kinda touching image. I was also vibing with some paintings by David Hockney, who of course paints pools, and the feel of the word "pool." It packs a punch. I think it fits?
Then I asked him if he thought it was good music for driving. “I mean, you're the one who owns a car,” he said. “You tell me!” I think you know my answer.