While waiting for the elevator, an elderly lady with a dog in a stroller studied my t-shirt. “Brutal Times, oh my. It’s a radio program?” “It is.” “I haven’t heard of it. Where can I listen?” Right here. And I hope somewhere she’s falling in love with a Muslimgauze remix.

Every night the Electrifying Mojo signed off with the same message, delivered in a baritone with a grin around the edges: “Whenever you feel like you’re nearing the end of your rope, don’t slide off. Tie a knot. Keep hanging. Keep remembering that ain’t nobody bad like you.”

Heavy Amber-era Autechre mood this week—"Yulquen" is such a perfect track.

Apple’s Music app has been rotting for years, and now it’s absolute trash if you want to manage a wholesome MP3 library like God intended.  Any suggestions for an MP3 player that syncs across devices? Doppler is the most elegant solution I’ve found, but the sync is a bit cumbersome.

Five favorites of the year so far. Set your controls to the heart of this hyperlink. 1. Biosphere - The Way of Time 2. Romance - Leave Her to Heaven 3. Minor Hexachords - Minor Concession 4. Sa Pa - Nonspiration 5. Rue des Garderies - Jiddu

Excellent question! Perhaps I should figure out how to do a Patreon so I can pay people to listen to me ramble. Until then, if you listen to the twelfth minute of Midnight Radio at twelve minutes past midnight while gazing into twelve candles, I guarantee something will unlock.

"Because these people, they give me they give me the creeps, anymore. I don't wanna." Theme song for 2025. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVOz...

And @martinessig.bsky.social is enjoying a moment of quiet Midnight Radio luxury, where refined comfort meets relaxed style.

Only 50 days until my favorite day of the year, when night comes an hour earlier.

I always wake up too early on Saturdays because I’m excited it’s Saturday.

“Transferring the energy of my dreams into my paintings has helped me heal myself and remove the negative energy from my nightmares.” Portia Zvavahera’s dream portraits are some of the most exciting paintings I’ve seen in a long time. Kurwira Vana, 2025 Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston More

Last night over the North Atlantic.

Idea for a game show: a lobster lays 50,000 eggs and only two survive.

a story cloud

Twenty-three minutes that drift in and out of focus like dreams tend to do. 1. Abul Mogard - Staring at the Sweeps of the Desert 2. Black Polygons - Incarnat 3. Seefeel - Rupt (Cut Mix) 4. Transient Waves - Soulspace 5. Intrusion - Love in Lofi Tap this hyperlink before it evaporates.

Here's what the next episode of Midnight Radio will look like.

Portrait of my August 2025 experience.

Embrace speed. Groove on distraction. Let the brain get garbled and strange. Find god in the liquid crystal glow.

I have no idea where or when this came from, but ten years later, I still send it to people who are being pointlessly obstinate.

Twenty-seven years later, Pole's CD 1 is still my favorite Sunday morning soundtrack.

Why do they make summer so hot? 1. Sixsixsevenfortyseven - I Stood There 2. Jana & El Nashmy - 3al Bayez 3. Erika - Tomorrow's Fires 4. DVA Damas - Wet Vision II 5. Drissi El-Abbassi - Zedti Laadab Aliya 6. Autechre - Clipper 7. Broken English Club - Prayer Space 8. Plastikman - Contain Hot link →

Oliver Farshi made some pictures of me.

Escape the fuckery of this world with a forty-minute plunge into deepwater mysteries. 1. Loscil - Drained Lake 2. Porter Ricks - Nautical Dub 3. Polmo Popo - Aqua 4. Variant - Ocean’s End 5. Black Polygons - Underwater 6. Mammo - Traversing a Raincloud Pour yourself a tall glass of this hyperlink.

“Let’s put this in the parking lot for now because we need to give your budget a haircut.” What kind of god would make such a creature?

High-grade minimal Detroit sleaze.

A snowy television hums in the corner, tuned to a screwball comedy from the forties: “Golly that’s a plain funny feeling, but remember it can be worse tomorrow!”

Late night drive to the desert.

I can confidently say this Friday’s episode of Midnight Radio will be glorious because “Nautical Dub” is the centerpiece.

The Midnight Radio book is underway.

Francis Bacon believed in “an area of the nervous system to which the texture of paint communicates more violently than anything else.”

Our stories failed us. We didn't realize that evil would be so stupid

I prefer adult situations to adult content.

Reading the news feels like sticking my head in a bag of trash.

Ten years later (!) Mr. Robot remains my favorite ambient television show for pixel-pushing and busywork.

I skated across sleep for hours, trying to find my way back into a dream that felt important. But it evaporated when I woke up, leaving only the residue of a voice in the sky, telling me I wasn’t glitching enough.

Sixsixsevenfortyseven's debut is one of my favorite albums of the year. It's a bass-heavy exercise in patience that gets exponentially better with every increase in volume.

Hell yeah! I'm figuring out the logistics this weekend—but all episode covers will be available and the fabric will be very soft.

Such a rich emotion when the lady at Taco Bell said, “Welcome back.” It’s nice to be remembered.

Here I am, astral projecting in 1983 to bring you five sun-bleached slabs of summertime music. 1. Gnod - Peace at Home 2. Anna Domino - Everyday I Don’t 3. Mystic AM - Caravanserai + Den of Thieves 4. Googoosh - Gol Bi Goldoon 5. Polmo Popo - Kiss Me Again and Again Join me in hyperspace.

For no reason at all, she looked up and asked, “How come you can be superstitious but you can’t be stitious?”

She frowned at the painting. “I don’t like the color but I like the feeling—and he did it in acrylic.”

At some point the screen became the world and now we’re haunting it. But this hyperlink leads to Nancy Sinatra haunting a slab of Basic Channel. 1. Suicide - Cheree 2. Variant - Foil 3. M83 - Don’t Save Us From the Flames 4. Gerry Rafferty - Down the Line 5. Basic Channel - Inversion (46% slower)

Walking past the television to get a banana, I heard an expert say, “The worst is yet to come.”

Last night I was happy it was raining, and I fell asleep wondering what “it” referred to.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Last night I read Kōbō Abe while eating Taco Bell in a parking lot. This is my best understanding of the sacred and profane.

One night I stitched together this video to remind me of the mood I want in the story I’m writing—it pairs M83’s “Don’t Save Us From the Flames” with clips from twenty favorite films.

A blurry voice on the radio sums it up: "We can't wipe the blood from our eyes fast enough to see what's coming next."

And thank you for tuning in to so much reverb over the past year! Last night I discovered how to make endless trails of sustained reverb, so season 2 is going to be great.