Music to drift off to sleep to

This is a serious answer.

Some less obvious ones that seem to always do the trick for me:
Earth - 2
Isis - Panopticon
Acid Mothers Temple - Mantra of Love
5ive - s/t

Oddly enough, so has Black Box's version of EWF's "Fantasy."

And Massive Attack's "Safe From Harm."

It's something I do but I don't think much about or remember.

lots of things by morton feldman, the last pieces for piano are my favourites.

aiden baker, metamorphose. especially with the window open, so its barely audible, i usually leave it on repeat because its lovely to wake up to as well.

deep listening seconded!

i find american don pretty great for getting to sleep, especially if you listen to it with musicians ears, following all those polyrhythms gets quite tiring after a while.

lots of phil niblock stuff, especially fun if you can deal with being quite loud.

keith fullerton whitman, greg davis, that beautiful record by mileece, i forget what its called, the one about crystal gardens or something, i adore that.

the strangest experience i've ever had was after an intense recording session, where we all crashed in one room with classic fm on, throughout the night we heard some wagner, arvo part and bits from st matthew passion, it was all on *really* loud and noone could be bothered to turn it off, i don't think i actually slept that night, but i can't be sure. its a really great time to listen to music, trying not to sound too much like a hippy, i find you can get much closer to the music than daytime listening.

for anyone that loves vladislav. less like multila, more like naima. turn it up loud! he really plays with dynamics on this, much more so than on the cds.

i think this thread needs to be revived... i've found a lot of gems here and i neeeed moooore (i travel constantly). been digging a lot of stuff from this blog:

http://crystalvibrations.blogspot.com/

can anyone recommend more stuff like this? blissful, instrumental, ambient/new agey music to tickle my brain as i drift off...

Windy and Carl, Especially "The Dream House".

Someone mentioned Four Calendar Café upthread, but the Cocteaus one that does this for me is definitely Victorialand.

Boards of Canada-Music Has The Right To Children

Velvet Cacoon seems to be designed for this - actually it's designed for the abuse of prescription medication, so they say, but sleep works.

Have tried Striborg. You drift off to sleep just fine, but then wake up at 4:00 AM with H.P. Lovecraft-strength nightmares.

that one always wakes me up xp

Julee Cruise - Floating

Ha. I've never played music to go to sleep to on my own, but an old girlfriend of mine did, and this was one of her/our staples. I also remember June Tabor's Aqaba, of all things, as part of the bedtime heavy rotation.

Cliff Martinez - Solaris soundtrack

Hisato Higuchi - Dialogue. fragmented guitar strumming and voice, sounds like he was half asleep when recording it. preferably listen with earphones

Cliff Martinez - Solaris soundtrack

I haven't heard that one. I interviewed Martinez around the time the Traffic soundtrack came out, and from the way he talked about it, Soderbergh hands him a temp soundtrack with various pre-existing pieces of music and it's then his job to reverse-engineer an original soundtrack from that.

It's pretty great. Sounds like a space-age windchime, ringing its way through a wormhole. Was re-used in a trailer for some new film recently, but can't remember which one.

Oh yeah - District 9.

Now listening to the Solaris OST on Spotify at work. Your fault if I spark out on the keyboard, Alba.

Michael Brook and Gas have already been mentioned - along with disc 2 of Paul Schutze's Apart, they were great bedtime favourites when I lived by myself and my bedroom was within earshot of the stereo.

The second disc of Miles Davis's Pangaea is a great one for this. Also, "He Loved Him Madly" from Get Up With It.

Eno's Thursday Afternoon nods me out every damn time.

― all you need is love vs. money (that's what i want) (Ioannis), Wednesday, September 9, 2009 10:35 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

was just gonna say the same

Talk Talk- Laughing Stock

"I can sleep under any acoustic condition" - John Cage

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, June 7, 2006 6:57 PM

yeah right

Most anything from The Innocence Mission from Birds of My Neighborhood on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr25sF18DZY

I spent about a year falling asleep each night to "Get on Jolly" by Bonny Billy and the Marquis de Tren.

fripp/eno - no pussyfooting
kawabata makoto - infinite love
pimmon - secret sleeping birds
raymond scott - soothing sounds for baby vol.1

That soothing sounds for baby record drove me nuts.

Also, "He Loved Him Madly" from Get Up With It.

^^^^

Deep Listening was mentioned upthread -- thirded.

I've been working on a new compilation to go to sleep to, and I'm looking for any track suggestions. I'll share what I have so far, in case anyone is interested. I'm not sure which of these I'll actually use yet. I'm trying to mix it, so I am trying to find a nice balance between sequencing the songs properly and staying in key.

Brock Van Wey - Too Little Too Late
Aidan Baker - The Sea Swells a Bit
Windy & Carl - Traveling
Cliff Martinez - Is that What Everybody Wants
Bola - Soleiele
Brian Eno & Harold Budd - The Silver Ball
Loscil - Sickbay
Markus Guentner - Umgebung
David Gerard - Prescience
Tetsuo Inoue - Holy Dance

I try to avoid beats for the most part, and anything at all unsettling. I'll probably lose the Bola and Cliff Martinez tracks.

One more I forgot is: Bvdub - Live to See the Day

To give this thread a slight twist, while I was recovering from surgery and taking a decent amount of oxynorm (fast-acting oxycontin) I found the following (some previously mentioned) albums excellent for soundtracking vaguely euphoric half-sleep:

Global Communications - 76:14
Triola - Triola Im Funftonraum
Slowdive - Pygmalion
Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians

There was a while when I used to fall asleep to So Tonight That I Might See by Mazzy Star nearly every night. I think I also did this whith the Twin Peaks sndtrk for a while until I realized that it's pretty creepy and got weirded out.

The North Sea/Rameses III - Night of the Ankou
Troum - Tjukurrpa (Part One: Harmonies)
Terry Riley - Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan
Edgar Froese - Aqua
Conrad Schnitzler - Blau

Grouper
Valet
Stars Of The Lid
Lau Nau

I have never made it through more than about twenty minutes at most of any Stars of the Lid without drifting off.

I forgot Jonathan Coleclough - Sumac and Period. Sumac, especially, really good for rainy/windy nights. Or mornings.

For some reason I find Stars of the Lid to be deeply unsettling.

Good call on the Rameses III!

In my late teens, The Dictators - Manifest Destiny, side 2.

Both Brightblack Morning Light records do the trick for me.

i made my final mix, listened to it, and it sucked. the only songs that were actually any good for listening to before bed were the Loscil and David Gerrard songs. back to square one. might put some Robin Guthrie on it or something. some of the drone is too spooky.

Laraaji's Essence/Universe, which sounds like a gently babbling brook if the water were replaced by zithers, can be found here.

My top six:

Mazzy Star - She Hangs Brightly
Slowdive - Just For a Day
Eno - Apollo
Red House Painters - rollercoaster album
Labradford - Fixed: Content
Spectrum - True Love Will Find You in the End ep

also: Lanterna s/t

lots o Cocteus too

& Moose

this stuff in the second paragraph, for sure

it is actually really awesome to fall asleep to black metal, the really fast war-metal kind. it's like your mind (mine, anyway, but this is also true for my wife, who doesn't even like metal) reaches some plateau of processing sound and just zens out. obviously if what you want is stuff that mellows your mood, this is a different deal, but if you lie down to sleep and put on Paragon Impure, you might be surprised at how deeply you sleep.

Those who enjoy falling asleep for a few minutes then waking up in the throes of a panic attack repeatedly my enjoy The Hafler Trio's 'Where Are You?'

Nearly anything by Flying Saucer Attack.

5works gmbh - fun-night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfIVMWTYnhY

The Gas records really do it for me, specially on long bus / plane trips. Anything to busy keeps me focused, I need repetition and haze.

Oh I see someone already mentioned Pop by Gas upthread. Glad to know I'm not the only one.

I used to switch between eno's "discreet music" and David Behrman - "on another ocean"

I found through personal experience that I don't enjoy new agey music when sleeping. I leave the stereo down the hall on. I listen to new wave and 4AD type stuff - it sounds cooler in your dreams.

Also the person who recommended Isis upthread for overnight listening is OTM.

I think Eno's "Discreet Music" may be one of the most perfect pieces of music ever created.

i am also consistently stunned by Stars of the Lid's "The Artificial Pine Arch Song"

emeralds - what happened

helios - eingya

Seven Saturdays, Love in the Time of Anticipated Defeat. Almost perfect except for intrusive & repetitive samples of french woman talking in a couple of tracks.

Also lots of oldies and easy listening, standards...the stereo is in a different room and the effect is dreamy.

Tara Jane O'Neil - In the Sun Lines

B. Eno - Discreet Music/Music for Airports

Scott Walker's aptly-titled album The Drift

i am also consistently stunned by Stars of the Lid's "The Artificial Pine Arch Song"

yeah that's pretty great. am only really familiar with Refinement, need to spend some time letting the rest of their catalogue osmose its way slowly into my subconscious.

Robert Rich - Somnium