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# Five Early Autumn Classics
- URL: https://www.jamesreeves.co/five-early-autumn-classics/
- Published: 2024-09-16T03:52:30.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-17T01:34:43.000Z
- Description: Analog media is better for hauntings.
- Author: James A. Reeves
- Tags: Midnight Radio, #mr-06

I've been pondering my love of reverberations. Last week, I received a request from a very kind listener: the filmmaker [Grace Wang](https://gracewang.format.com/?ref=jamesreeves.co) suggested a Linda Rondstadt track, and my first impulse was to drown it in static and reverb. Why?

Perhaps the answer is simple: echos and fog generate mystery. In 1973, the painter [Gerhard Richter](https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/paintings/photo-paintings/women-27/high-diver-ii-5519?categoryid=19&p=1&sp=32&pg=20&ref=jamesreeves.co) said, "I've never found anything lacking in a blurry canvas. Quite the contrary: you can see many more things in it than in a sharply focused image. A landscape painted with exactness forces you to see a determined number of clearly differentiated trees, while in a blurry canvas, you can perceive as many trees as you want."

For years, I’ve been writing a novel about a noise that belongs to either God or a demon. Along the way, I’ve become convinced the trick with storytelling is to create a situation where whatever the reader might imagine is infinitely more compelling than anything I might describe. "Nothing is so frightening as what's behind the closed door," Stephen King writes in [*Danse Macabre*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse%5FMacabre%5F%28book%29?ref=jamesreeves.co). "When you made the monster in your mind, there was no zipper running down its back; it was a perfect monster."

A lack of mystery might explain why today's ultra-high-definition, motion-smoothed devices evoke nausea. There's no room for the imagination. Analog media is better for hauntings: a whisper in the crackle of an old record, a face emerging from snow on the television set, a sinister voice on a reel-to-reel. Ghosts don't feel at home in mp3 files or LCD screens.

The connection between reverb and mystery is clear to me, but I’m curious why reverb sounds like memory. There's a direct link in my brain between a voice drenched in echo and, say, a rainy night seven years ago at a dim sum joint that felt as if it'd been concocted in a dream: diner chrome and pleather mixed with Chinese lanterns while a 1970s sitcom played on a Zenith over the bar. Sure, the past tends to blur, but my vision of the future isn't exactly crisp, especially when I can’t stop watching the news these days. This season finale of America is freakier than anything I might imagine.

But here are five early autumn classics that always mellow me out.

1. **Gas - Pop 02**  
*Pop* | Kompakt, 2000 | [More](https://kompakt-gas.bandcamp.com/album/pop?ref=jamesreeves.co)
2. **Aphex Twin - #19**  
*Selected Ambient Works Volume II* | Warp, 1994 | [More](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selected%5FAmbient%5FWorks%5FVolume%5FII?ref=jamesreeves.co)
3. **Midwife - Forever**  
*Prayer Hands* | Antiquated Future, 2018 | [More](https://heavenmetal.bandcamp.com/album/prayer-hands?ref=jamesreeves.co)
4. **Sonic Youth - Superstar**  
*If I Were a Carpenter* | A&M, 1994 | [More](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstar%5F%28Delaney%5Fand%5FBonnie%5Fsong%29?ref=jamesreeves.co)
5. **Seefeel - Filter Dub**  
*Quique* | Too Pure, 1993 | [More](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quique%5F%28album%29?ref=jamesreeves.co)

And yes, this mix is soaked in reverb, much of which is the residue that's been accumulating from prior episodes—plus the requested Linda Rondstadt and a dash of Lee Hazlewood. Listen below, or get your freshly-mixed mp3 [here](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/bb/85bbc222-eb2e-4bcf-8b92-f241768e9260/content/media/2024/09/Midnight-Radio-006---Five-Early-Autumn-Classics.mp3?ref=jamesreeves.co). (Or [a Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5VUrsNhTrsCbVFmjIHY6PF?ref=jamesreeves.co) if you're square.)

Thank you for listening. And reading. The request lines are always open.

#### Midnight Radio 006 | [Download](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/bb/85bbc222-eb2e-4bcf-8b92-f241768e9260/content/media/2024/09/Midnight-Radio-006---Five-Early-Autumn-Classics.mp3?ref=jamesreeves.co)

![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/bb/85bbc222-eb2e-4bcf-8b92-f241768e9260/content/media/2024/09/Midnight-Radio-006---Five-Early-Autumn-Classics_thumb.jpg)

Midnight Radio 006: Five Early Autumn Classics

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