4:56 AM
1There was a time when I would tell people I did not dream. If they did not believe me, I’d say okay maybe sometimes I dreamt about shapes…
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PODCAST
Midnight Radio
Hosted by
James A. Reeves
Inspired by the Electrifying Mojo's broadcasts, Midnight Radio is a short burst of late-night reverberations, inspirations, and a mixtape delivered ’round midnight on the 1st and 15th of each month. Every episode is available in its full Technicolor glory at jamesreeves.co.
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50 Episodes
Latest Episodes
Lost Futures + New Spirituals
1Back to my childhood fear of mannequins, how I couldn’t enter a department store without bursting into tears. My mortified parents would scoop me up and cover my…
American Twilight
1In the autumn of 2008, just as the financial crisis was about to hit, C. was offered a job at Nokia. She called with the news while I…
How to Think About Dreams
In the aesthetic dimension of vision and dream, the question in itself is an answer.—J.F. Martel1 All streaks come to an end, at least if good sense prevails. For…
A Torchlight Shining at the Bastards
Every showing is full of secrets.–Julian of Norwich, 1373Read the full post here.I'm not quite sure how I crossed paths with Michael Donaldson, which is one of the…
Air Conditioning
1One of my most valuable possessions is the pawn my father carved eleven years ago to replace the one we’d lost from our chess set. We’d fallen into…
Open the Door of the Cosmos
Read the full post here.The ability to find beauty, both backwards and forwards, is something I've learned from our Very Special Guest, my friend Earl Carlson, who I've…
The Shimmer
I've stitched together a soundtrack that follows tonight's rules of beauty:Beauty is almost sinister.Beauty overwhelms the senses.Beauty cannot be intended.We begin with billowing vocals and cloudy guitars that…
The Age of the Holy Spirit
1At my Thursday night Men's Spirituality Book Club, we've been debating the recovery cliché that "acceptance is the answer," which sounds so limp and lazy.But I'm learning that…
Dream Theory
Read the full post. Dreams are about presence. It’s the only time we’re released from ego and intention. Dreams dredge up our baggage and drop us into the here…
Star Demon
My first memory is sitting in a high chair in front of a small Zenith television. The opening credits for a sitcom played, maybe Happy Days or Laverne…
The Studio of Gratifying Discourse
C. says it’s better to make tacos at home because we know what’s in them. But I think it’s the not-knowing that makes Taco Bell the spiritual choice.…
Noon Radio
Read the full post here. For tonight's episode, Steve sent me a file with selections from some of his favorite songs. He wanted to put together something that would…
Neglected Utopian Energy
Read the entire post here. In its common form, nostalgia is a taunt because it fetishes a time that can never be reclaimed. But when dealing with mid-1990s electronica,…
Return of the Gods
Read the full post.I often think about Leonard Cohen's observation that religion is the greatest form of art. When I'm moved by a painting, I am not thinking…
Conversations With the Drum
Read the full post.I’ll admit, I flew too close to the sun on this one. First off, the Concept series has become such a personal landmark that it’s…
Bodies Without Organs
A very special episode with Candy Chang—read the full post here.Do you believe in god or any spiritual dimension to the universe?“Yes. Watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was my…
Night Flight to Vienna
Read the full post with notes on the lectio divina.I'm writing this on a Vienna-bound airplane. A full moon shines over the Atlantic, which is roiling away down…
Darkly Euphoric
Mike Doyle is here with us tonight to inaugurate the First Very Special Guest Episode of Midnight Radio.“Hi, I’m Mike. I’ve been a culture enthusiast my whole life.…
First Things
Three songs that possess the righteously serene energy I fantasize about cultivating in the first minutes of a new year. Then the actual year starts happening. But playing…
Holiday Lullaby
Here in the Middle West, we’ve already enjoyed two excellent snowstorms, which augurs well for a proper winter. Although the year is winding down, the future is still…
Slow Gold
Like my thoughts on egg foo young and tornados, tonight’s broadcast is all over the map—but I’m increasingly fond of intensely personal playlists that ratfuck the algorithm. We…
Absorb the Poison
An ode to Michael Clayton and the giddy renewal before death. Read the full post."I took a deep, cleansing breath and I put that notion aside. I tabled…
The Heart Keeps Time
The clocks roll back an hour tonight, and it’s my favorite moment of the year. Not only does it bring the night closer, it reminds me that if…
Hallucination Soundtrack
I spent my high school nights making cassette loops, hunched over the guts of a disemboweled Maxell, splicing bits of brown magnetic tape and piecing everything back together…
Autumn Chrome
It’s the first of October but the weather is all wrong. Here in the Middle West, it’s been endless sunshine with temperatures twenty degrees above normal. Meanwhile, our…
The Stellar Sphere
Five favorite songs released in 2025. Also includes bits of Rebekah Del Rio and David Bowie, along with the optimal dosage of static and reverb.Biosphere - The Way…
Six Broken Dreams
Tonight's episode compresses two and a half hours of dream chatter into twenty-three minutes that drift in and out of focus like dreams tend to do.Abul Mogard -…
Untitled Heat
A quick and knotty mixtape I made for tomorrow morning’s run, built from my favorite songs for lumbering along the river this summer—and lumber is the operative word.…
Remembering Lake Superior
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…
Mirror Games
1There was this thing we did in grade school, and maybe you tried it too. It was one of those childhood dares that spread through playgrounds and school…
Ghosts and Gods
1Here are my all-time favorite lyrics:A piece of brain in my hairThe wheels are meltingA ghost is screaming your nameThey come from M83’s “Don’t Save Us from the…
Escape from Death Prom
I.Here in the landlocked center of Ohio, I stood in a superstore parking lot and watched a dozen seagulls circle overhead, hunting for minnows or plankton or whatever…
Desire Is a Demon
When I moved to Ohio last year, I didn’t expect to become fascinated by death drives, desire, and demonology. There are several reasons for this trajectory—such as living…
Dreamland
Some of tonight’s songs are about heaven, some are about hell, and perhaps this is what all dreams are ultimately about. Listen to Charlie Megira’s guitar, more alive…
Destroyer of Obstacles
I began to feel pleasantly haunted, finding information in the static, a hymnal in the hiss as I carved two hours down to the eighteen minutes we have…
Dead Trees Bloom Flowers
I. FortuneAlthough I have no religion and do not believe in omens, something takes hold of me whenever I step into a church or a temple. My cast…
Exit the Tiger
When visiting a Taoist temple, you enter through the east door, the mouth of the dragon, which is good luck. After performing your rituals and prayers, you exit…
The Obsidian Turtle Governs the North
Dispatch from Taiwan. Read the full post.Tonight's installment is bookended by two tracks from an all-time favorite album that’s been keeping me company on this trip: Atom Heart…
The Red Curtain
A tribute to David Lynch that roams through ruined ballads and slow-motion noir. Busted machinery bleeds through the walls and if you listen closely, the Woodsman will remind…
Return to Death Prom
Frozen rain is falling in the Middle West, and I’m writing to you through a haze of fever and sniffles and nostalgia. This morning I came across a photograph of my mother that has the…
Slow Vessels
Lately I’ve been pondering a line from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal: “I often wonder why people torment themselves as soon as they can.” It’s an excellent question…
Strange Shapes in the Night
I had to ask Chat GPT how to delete my Instagram account. Living in the twenty-first century feels not only slightly embarrassing but increasingly like an ultimatum: embrace…
Holy Ruins
1.The first housecats in ancient Egypt gradually discovered they received more attention from their owners when their meows mimicked a human baby’s cry. Today, birds mimic police sirens…
Professional Holiday Party
As another exhausting and demented year comes to a merciful end, we’ve earned a little fun.Here are five joyous songs that make me smile whenever I hear them.…
The Heart Accumulates Microcracks
A few weeks ago, a Very Kind Listener asked for a soundtrack to accompany “being awake at 3am with a heart accumulating microcracks like the tibiae of the…
Brutal Times
On a flight to Washington DC last month, I discovered I felt okay above the clouds. No shivering or hyperventilating or fighting back tears. Christ, how long has…
There Will Be No Armageddon
Yesterday, one of my students turned me on to a delightful bit of Japanese slang from the Meiji era: tsundoku, the phenomenon of acquiring books and letting them…
Monochrome Candy
The first five minutes of every movie should be very noisy so we can comfortably open our snacks without bothering anyone. But enough politics. The request lines have…
Two Million Miles to Earth
There’s a New York Times headline that says “You Won’t Stop Thinking About This Clam Chowder,” which sounds like a fucking curse.But I'm still thinking about reverb. Last…