do you listen to music when you go to sleep?

i now favour stuff like the Dead C, both colourful and stoic, or composers like Tenney and Varese.

i found Boulez too exciting, as was Tod Dockstader, but i love those american post-schoenburg composers, their abstract shapes like dream wallpaper

jazz can be too exciting (Don Byron recently woke me up, too interesting) but the pass-the-hat-solo-solo thing (some Lacy dates)is acceptably boring for sleep. AMM is too dynamic.

if there was some piece of i could never learn or suus out then i'd use it all the time, but if the music becomes too familiar my mind wanders elsewhere, too much thinking, insomnia .. so i just keep turning the music over, an endless sheepy hollow

radio static and fans works nicely, too

normally, i guess its just somewhat quiet stuff - i used to sleep to music for airports all the time, and the microphones sometimes, and cluster and fennesz and belle and sebastian and scott walker and stuff.

in high school it would be Viva Hate every nite.

These days its nothing when my girlfriend is over, Coast-to-Coast AM if she isn't. I find that the more out-there the topic is, the better i'll sleep. If they're discussing Atlantis or time travel or something like that, I'll drift off into the most sweet slumber imaginable. If its political, I'm groggy the next morning.

i'll listen to something at a low volume that i know isn't going to get too loud or obnoxious

recent selections have included:

caroline - murmurs (anyone like this record?)
mondialito - avant la pluie
elliott smith - s/t
the books - thought for food
simon and garfunkel - bridge over troubled waters

i used to like listening to vespertine as well. 'pagan poetry' is fairly soothing to drift off to

I have constructed a playlist of beatless ambient music by Growing, Pan America, Aphex Twin etc just for this purpose.

Anyone ever tried going to sleep to Scott Walker's "The Drift"? If so, how many night terrors did you get?

I listen to Radio 4. (the radio station, not the band)

I went through a phase of listening to a lot of Pelt and No-Neck Blues Band while drifting into sleep, but that has since passed - back to the floor fan I bought at a Target 7 years ago.

I used to. Elliot Smith, Kind of Blue and NPR were all good choices.

Now it must silent and dark.

A few months ago I'd sometimes put Tilt or The Drift on my iPod for a while, let it go to the point where I fell asleep before I'd wake up again and be ready to go to sleep for real, putting the iPod away. (I don't want to sleep through the night with earbuds in.) No night terrors that I recall — I tend to forget my dreams pretty quickly.

I used to put on early Tangerine Dream (Zeit through Rubycon) for going to sleep. Also Eno's ambient works, early jazz piano recordings, Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning.

I've been listening to Felt every night before going to sleep.

Life has been better as a result.

i listen to itunes on shuffle usually

I used to listen to music as I went to sleep every night. It takes me about an hour to fall asleep anyway, so it was actually a really nice way to get acquainted with new purchases. My girlfriend of the past 3 years can't sleep with any music on whatsoever, so nowadays I just lay in bed awake in dead silence.

Back then, it used to be a steady diet of Stars of the Lid, and Hope Sandoval's Bavarian Fruit Bread hit the spot nicely too.

Rap works the best for me. Something about just lying there paying attention to the lyrics like, uh, a bedtime story. The new Pharoahe Monch, last couple of nights.

In ritual fashion, In A Silent Way.

But now that I am older, I wear earplugs so it could be anything really.

Minor Threat puts me right out.

when I was 16 I was all about sleeping to SAWII on loop. Waking up to "Tree" was one of the more surreal moments that ensued, with that big creepy yawning synth swell

I fell asleep thru the entirety of Stone Roses first album, on the loungeroom floor, once.I woke up with "Don't Stop" doing its reverse guitar thing and it was very disorienting.

I dont usually sleep with any music, as I have no stereo in my bedroom.

Marsen Jules, "Lazy Sunday Funerals"

Melodies, harmonies and samples remind me of Stars of the Lid ... but instead of endlessly unfolding lines, there are distinct phrases that float in the air for a bit and dissolve.

A few months ago I'd sometimes put Tilt or The Drift on my iPod for a while, let it go to the point where I fell asleep before I'd wake up again and be ready to go to sleep for real, putting the iPod away.

I usually listen to something drone-y. C.C.C.C.'s Love & Noise and Pauline Oliveros in the Arms of Reynols have done me well.

i don't these days, i crave silence when i sleep. but when i was a teenager i would lie in bed with my headphones on, listening to the radio.
-- di, Saturday, January 5, 2002 5:00 PM (5 years ago)

me too, except i was still doing this up until 4-5 years ago

sleeping music

jean ritchie - british traditional ballads in the southern mountains
todd dockstader - eight electronic pieces
henry jacobs - electronic kabuki mambo
stuart dempster - underground overlays from the cistern chapel
eliane radigue - e=a=b=a+b
folk Songs of britain. vol 2, songs of seduction
alvin lucier- i am sitting in a room

used to be stars of the lid the whole time, but these have kind of taken over

When I have trouble getting sleep I usually put on either Jarre's "Waiting For Costeau" or Eno's "Music For Airports". It's the only thing they may be used for though.

henry jacobs - electronic kabuki mambo

an inspired choice

Last night I listened to Morbid Angel - Covenant. Out like a light.

iPod on shuffle. My wife stays up later than I do and turns the music off when she comes to bed. When she says "I can't believe you could sleep through whatever that was," I go check and it's usually either Naked City or Blind Idiot God.

Is "Tree" SAWII CD2 Track 6? Cos that is the reason I don't go to sleep with that music on.

"Hello this is Echoes with John Diliberto."

I usually crash listening to this on the radio, but if he goes into playing a bunch of that celtic sounding stuff, I've got to put on something else. There have been a few artists I have found out from this show and Music from the Heart of Space (which the local station quit playing).

every now and then I'll throw on the humpback whale CD to help me drift off...

i cant unless im totally totally knackered. keeps me awake and i end up concentrating too hard on the music.

Albums i've been using for sleeping purposes solely of late - gives me a somewhat skewed perception of them:

Sally Oldfield - Water Bearer
Orb - Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld
Yeasayer - Odd Blood
Bel Canto - Birds of Passage
Can - Ege Bamyesi
Prince - Sign 'o' the Times (mostly disc 1)
Stereolab - Margarine Eclipse

can - future days
the mike gunn - hemp for victory
peaking lights - 936
la planete sauvage - OST
grouper - wide
spiritualized - lazer-guided melodies
arthur russell - world of echo
electric wizard - witchcult today
angel'in heavy syrup (various albums)

not allowed to listen to tunes at night any more, as it keeps the missus awake. I miss it, but have to admit I do sleep a lot better without it.

can't listen to music as i go to sleep, the idea of the stereo not being turned off really bothers me.

only when im piss drunk.

It's savages who fall asleep with the TV on who I absolutely cannot abide or understand.

I thought Jim O'Rourke's 'Bad Timing' would be ideal for this, but that bloody last track....

Geir Jensen's Field Recordings From Tibet is highly recommended. I tried Jeff Mangum's collection but kind of hated it - not fit for such a purpose.

Also National Trust: The Album - produced by Jarvis Cocker, is perfect (and free):
http://www.uniquefacilities.com/files/nationaltrust.htm

When I lived in NYC, I fell asleep every night listening to 'Metal Machine Music' at low volume...it did a nice job of drowning out street noise, especially when I was living in the East Village. In Boston, I live in a big crazy house covered in vines, facing a giant garden filled with birds. It's a lot quieter. I fall asleep listening to William Basinski sometimes, or Phill Niblock, but I generally don't listen to anything at night anymore. The birds do their own Messiaen soundtrack.

(also: hello ILM! I just realized that I've been posting here, on and off, for over ten years!)

I think we should at the very least get commemorative coffee mugs on our 10-year ILM anniversaries! (The again, the coffee would only keep us up at night.)

Ha, yes, coffee mugs at the very least! Or maybe purple hearts? Red badges of courage?

What's really cool to fall asleep to is that listentolosangeles website, that juxtaposes live LA police radio reports with ambient music...

― henry s, Saturday, May 21, 2011 11:49 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

I like this and I like...

http://youarelistening.to/deepthought

...which is various 'thinkers' wittering on to an ambient background. Terence McKenna's ...erm... thoughts are particularly good for dropping off to.