It’s late summer, and everything is overgrown and looks slightly obscene. Trees sag, their leaves are tired, and the grass is scorched. The nights hum 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 the 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.
Fun fact: 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 (97% slower)
Concept 1 | 1996 | More - Pole - Modul (84% slower)
1 | Matador, 1998 | More - Autechre - Yulquen (87% slower)
Amber | Warp, 1994 | More - Basic Channel - Radiance II (78% slower)
Radiance | Basic Channel, 1994 | More - Plastikman - Consumed (91% slower)
Consumed | Minus, 1998 | More
These 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 carried pieces of glass in our pockets that made us cranky. But in the meantime, let’s install roadside plaques across the nation that describe its hauntings and spiritual visions. Put a sign in front of a grain silo that says it’s a sculpture by a conceptual artist named Olive Garden. Return some myth to this fallen world.
Midnight Radio 004 | Download
Thank you for listening, and the request lines are now open: if there's a certain mood you'd like to hear in the next installment, let me know.
