A stray factoid that lingers in the mind: evolution is fastest in body parts used to attract mates or frighten rivals. Some words haunt the subconscious like moonfish and gorgons. Sometimes I scan the liturgical names of geological epochs like the Time of the Great Dying and scribble phrases I cannot place: Light echoes from red supergiants. Eyes on stalks. Static implies fixture as well as chaotic noise.
There’s a similar flavor to crossing the 45th parallel, the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole. You can feel the geography shift when you see all that big pine and cold water. I usually cross this line while speeding toward Michigan’s upper peninsula on an empty road in the dark.
Lake Superior frightened me when I was small. My parents enjoyed camping along its shore on long weekends, and I would doze on the sticky pleather backseat of our Pontiac while we drove from Detroit to some vacant beach where we would set up our tent. I would squirm in my sleeping bag, unable to sleep with that mysterious lake sitting out there in the night like it was waiting.
In second grade, we studied the Great Lakes and read a pamphlet that described Lake Superior as the deepest and coldest of the five lakes: Scientists have not yet reached the bottom, and they do not know what lives there. I’d lie awake thinking about what might live in all that uncharted space.
There’s enough water in Lake Superior to submerge all of the Americas. Its southern edge is known as “the Graveyard of the Great Lakes” due to a cascade of shipwrecks. On July 30, 1985, Jeffrey Val Klump became the first person to reach the bottom of Lake Superior at 1,333 feet. This happened after I read that pamphlet.
Forty years later, I think I’ve made my peace with Lake Superior. Antarctica scares me today. My head goes swimmy if I look at it for too long on a map. All that blank land feels like leaping off a rooftop. Maybe this is why I’m drawn to signs that position me on the planet: the 45th parallel, the Continental Divide, and bullet-ridden signs cheerfully announcing the state line. And yes, the pulsing blue dot that accompanies me wherever I go, keeping me oriented and globally positioned.
But there were years when I would crisscross the nation with only a dog-eared atlas. Now I can hardly drive to Target without mapping my route. Something has been lost—a sense of agency, a way of being in the world—but I cannot argue that squinting at a roadmap with a flashlight was better.
Perhaps I’m thinking about Lake Superior tonight because it speaks to a deep-boned craving for mystery in these unmysterious times when it feels like everything can—and should—be answered. Feelings are mistaken for wisdom. Information has displaced wonder.
So tonight's soundtrack offers a murky marine-themed response to a Very Kind Listener's recent request for some dub techno—here's forty minutes submerged in mysterious echoes and watery orchestras. Listen below or better yet, take a sip of this mp3.
- Loscil - Drained Lake
Monument Builders | Kranky, 2016 | Bandcamp - Porter Ricks - Nautical Dub
Biokenetics | Chain Reaction, 1996 | Bandcamp - Polmo Popo - Aqua
The Science of Breath | Subtractive, 2002 | Boomkat - Variant - Ocean’s End Revisited
Ocean's End | Echospace, 2015 | Bandcamp - Black Polygons - Underwater
Silence | 2014 | Bandcamp - Mammo - Traversing a Raincloud
General Patterns | Short Span, 2025 | Bandcamp - Deepchord - Oceanic
20 Electrostatic Soundfields | Soma, 2021 | Boomkat
Served with several gallons of reverb, some crushed static, and a dollop of Stevie Wonder.
And dig the quiet luxury of Midnight Radio apparel. TeePublic's tri-blend t-shirts are the softest I've found—but a person can only own so many Spiritualized and Basic Channel shirts, so I've made a few Midnight Radio options to expand my repertoire and weird out the normals. (This isn't a dumbass attempt at monetization, I swear. I earn fifty cents per sale. I just like these shirts—but only the tri-blend.)
Thank you for listening, and the request lines are open.
Midnight Radio 27 | Download
