A well balanced mixtape duo with moody music ideal for late night design sessions

Since back in the days as a young design student, I’ve enjoyed working during the quiet of the nighttime and I believe that’s something a lot of artists, programmers, writers, and designers share; We are children of the night. When it gets dark outside the demanding noise of everyday life with all its clutter steps aside to deep, overarching silence and the mind of many of us tends to be wide open and particularly creative.

At least for me, a proper soundtrack enhances those nocturnal sessions a lot —both in pleasure and outcome. Even though there are a lot of amazing LPs¹ to listen to, I’ve spent quite some time in 2020 putting together two long mixtapes made primarily for such occasions.

In total, these two Spotify playlists pack more than five hours of carefully selected and arranged tracks –90, including some Interludes and skits, perfect to get you into the tunnel and find inspiration during your extended late-night working sessions.

Apart from that, I draw on these mixtapes to find catharsis and come to rest during cold and dark winter hours and grey days in general, as well.

I often think that the night is more alive and richly coloured than the day.

— Vincent Van Gogh

Since there’s a lot of –to some extent heavy– bass and some rather high-pitched sounds, I strongly recommend a decent audio output device that can handle a broad spectrum of frequencies well in order to get the most out of this music.

part I: MANIAC
— 42 Tracks / 2hours 23minutes

part II: Wolves
— 48 Tracks / 2hours 59minutes

¹ thinking of M83, The XX, Her, Tycho, The Howl & The Hum, Howling, Son Lux, Darkside, and Portico for example