Nighttime driving music

[johnie104]

I'm creating a playlist for in the car that has music suited for driving (preferrably at night). That doesn't mean I'm looking for mellow music or even music to keep me awake. I'm trying to find music that has a certain 'droning' to it. A bass or a beat that is not too fast and not too slow, that allows you to absent-mindedly bob your head too.

Some examples:
Muse - Praque: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLud8HixARU&feature=related
Portishead - Wandering Star: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEQNAZGoZrw

Anyone have some suggestions for songs like this? It can be any genre as long as they have that droning beat to them.

[Microscopic cog]

Scorn is really smooth, hypnotizing electronic music, kinda slow but great background music.

Infected Mushroom are something more upbeat with racing beats and soaring guitar solos.

Manes, a former Norwegian black metal band now mixing various genres of music that blends into this dark, athmospheric track that fuses beats, french and english rap, hypnotizing black metal guitar riffing into something entirely new.

Kraftwerk, no other song has translated driving on the german Autobahn so directly as Kraftwerk when they released their album Autobahn, the full version consists of 24 minutes of droning beats with hypnotizing synthesizer, effectively creating one of the best soundscapes ever.

Maybeshewill, for if you're not really into that weird electronic stuff, Maybeshewill is a post rock band ( no singer ) who mix traditional heavy guitar work and drumming with piano riffs and electronics, the album has soft and louder tracks, with the album's title track being 6 minutes of furious rage by even including samples from the famous riot scene from the movie, Network but there are also ballads on the album, so you should decide for yourself what you like the most.

Modest Mouse are a favourite of mine, and you either like them or not, so here goes.

[bosonicyouth]

I used to deliver pizzas at night in the mountains and really got into making soundtracks for it!

The track that immediately comes to mind is DJ Shadow - What Does Your Soul Look Like pt 4, others off Endtroducing would work too.

other albums:
Three Mile Pilot - Chief Assassin To The Sinister (depressive downtempo indie)
Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You (noise rock turned placid)
Earth - Pentastar: In the Style of Demons (drone-rock)
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (canonical shoegaze)
Moondog - anything (outsider neo-classical)
Tortoise - TNT (chilled out electronics-based post rock)
Rowland S. Howard - Teenage Snuff Film (ex-Birthday Party, more interesting than Nick Cave imo)
TV On the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (soul-inflected electro-indie)
Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth (sparse post-punk)
Rockets Red Glare - Self Titled (mathy, moody, bass-heavy post-hardcore)
My Disco - Cancer or Little Joy (ultra-minimalist discordant dance rock)
Blonde Redhead - Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons (eerie guitar rock)
The Microphones - The Glow Pt 2 (fuzzed out drony sad music)
The Van Pelt - Sultans of Sentiment (sparse, driving 90s emo)
Lungfish - anything (repetitive abstract indie rock)
Linton Kwesi Johnson - Dread Beat an' Blood (brooding dub)
Six Organs of Admittance - For Octavio Paz (drony neo-folk)
GZA - Liquid Swords (super stripped back hip hop)
Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (moody bass-driven jazz)
Smog - Red Apple Falls (depressive crooning)
Wire - Chairs Missing (experimental post-punk, some gems)
Twin Peaks soundtrack

and if you want it to be kind of terrifying
Goblin - Suspiria (soundtrack to the horror film)

1 millionth edit: sorry I went a bit overboard..

[ChocloManx]

Basically anything by Boards of Canada. (also good for listening while watching old footage (especially old educational films about the dangers of cycling and the importance of tin))

[Microscopic cog]

Rowland S. Howard - Teenage Snuff Film (ex-Birthday Party, more interesting than Nick Cave imo)

*gasp* Oh no he didn't!

Edit: Thankyouthankyouthankyou thank you for making me listen to this. It's amazing.

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

Try some T Spigot

[Sean Quixote]

First of all, thank you OP for reminding me that I need to verse myself in Portishead's discography.

I dunno if this is quite what you were looking for, but this thread's title reminded me of something that I'm finding just about irresistible to share with y'all. I'm going to link y'all to this video, but before you watch it, know that YouTube or the RIAA or some other douchebag made them change the audio, which was originally the song "Night Diving" by Thrice, so you'll want to queue that up first if you wanna truly appreciate it.

[freakish777]

Maybeshewill, for if you're not really into that weird electronic stuff, Maybeshewill is a post rock band ( no singer ) who mix traditional heavy guitar work and drumming with piano riffs and electronics, the album has soft and louder tracks, with the album's title track being 6 minutes of furious rage by even including samples from the famous riot scene from the movie, Network but there are also ballads on the album, so you should decide for yourself what you like the most.

This times a million. Their album "I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone" is really good. The song "Red Paper Lanterns" is great as is "Farewell to Sarajevo." If you like Maybeshewill, I would definitely recommend Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky and maybe Nine Inch Nails' instrument music (The "Ghosts" album, and a handful of other songs like "A Warm Place", "At The Heart of it All", and "Driver Down").

[podbaydoor]

These are all my personal favorites for nighttime driving, and they're all fairly rhythmic/catchy for bobbing your head to.

RJD2 - Ghostwriter
If you like sampled stuff.

War Photographer - Jason Forrest
Notable for superb sampling of trombones. Also bonus hilarious animation video. (It's Vikings having a battle of the bands between two warships.)

Royksopp - Happy Up Here
Upbeat and cheerful.
Royksopp - Vision One
Just awesome, I love the bass-line or whatever this counts as.

Nightmares on Wax - 195lbs
If you listen to nothing else in this list, listen to this one. I think it fits the requirements of your request the best.
Nightmares on Wax - Les Nuits
My other favorite NOW track.
Nightmares on Wax - A Case of Funk
Really, you could probably just go to the Nightmares on Wax playlist - 82 videos total - and click on something randomly.

Flying Lotus - My Room is White
Remix of Mia Doi Todd - a little bit more hip-hop, I guess. I was introduced to it after searching for Samurai Champloo-style music. Speaking of which,

Minmi - Shiki No Uta
Produced by Nujabes, outro for Samurai Champloo, pretty mellow awesome tune.

Nujabes - Feather (ft. Cise Starr)
A guy quoting a bunch of literary things. A mellow and melodic rap.

DJ Shadow - Midnight in a Perfect World
More sampling goodness.

Maxi Jazz, Robbie Williams - My Culture
Music starts around 1:24, though the intro dialogue sets up the concept.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Undercooled
Another jazzy and catchy beat/rap/thing.

Scissor Sisters - Music is the Victim
Terminally catchy, contains swear words.

I guess none of these are droning, except for maybe the Nightmares on Wax stuff, but they do have beats you can tap your feet to.

[bosonicyouth]

bump

Terry Riley - Persian Surgery Dervishes (hypnotic synth drone - not recommended driving past midnight)

[freezeblade]

This type of music is also good for moody wandering through a city at night with a big pair of headphones. My favorite being Ulver - Perdition City. The entire album, front to back, is just so damn good, and perfect for this.

Smokey, Jazz-influenced, Sound-sample-and-ambance-laden trip-hop with precious-few words. So fucking good.

[philsov]

Ratatat - Classics (full album)

Paul Oakenfold - Silence (remixin' Tiesto remixin' Delirium)

Glitch Mob - Warrior Concerto

[somitomi]

I haven't yet listened to everything, but this thread is already great. And to add something of value to necroing it, here are some songs I consider night time driving songs:

• Pink Floyd - Obscured by Clouds, I really wish there was a longer version of this
• Gorillaz - Tomorrow Comes Today
• Ed Sheeran - Bloodstream, this one has a faster beat to it
• Coldplay - Magic, this only occured to me now (Midnight fits on the list too)
• Coldplay - Life in Technicolor
• Mumford and Sons - Hot Gates and also Wilder Mind
• Omega - Tízezer lépés
• Vangelis - L'Apocalypse des Animaux except for maybe the second track (which is the first in this video for some reason although the tracklist is the same as my version)

[Mikeski]

Necro +1!

The Gathering; albums from "How to Measure a Planet?" onwards (they were doom/goth metal before that.)
Monsters from the album "Souvenirs".
Travel from "How to Measure a Planet?".

Particle is more upbeat, but the title means it has to be nighttime driving music (they're a "jam band"):
Road's A Breeze (@3AM), from the album "Launchpad".

Chroma Key, Kevin Moore's post-Dream-Theater project.
Undertow from "Dead Air For Radios".

Starcadian, who I just learned of recently, seems to fit the theme.
HE^RT.

...and I Mother Earth for something heavy. (the thinking man's RHCP, from Canada?)
Rain Will Fall from "Dig".

[podbaydoor]

Hiatus - Third

Listening to this track always makes me think of the image of a driver going through a neon city and all you see is their face through the windshield with the reflected neon glare passing by. Also, wait until the bass kicks in.

[somitomi]

Gorillaz meets dub/reggae and somehow it's pretty neat: Laika Come Home
The 3^rd, 4^th, 8^th, 9^th and maybe the 10^th tracks are the mellower, more nighttime-y songs.
Bonus points for awesome title.

[somitomi]

The soundtrack of Moon is excellent in my opinion.

[aldonius]

The obvious candidates to my mind are the futuresynth/synthwave/retrowave/outrun/whatever-they're-calling-it-this-week tracks. That whole 80s neon/noir aesthetic, much like that Starcadian track Mikeski posted.

... So the canonical 'driving' song from that genre-cloud, for me, is The Road To Alpha Centauri, by Highway Superstar (thematic names w00t).

[somitomi]

I just discovered this Swedish band called Amason. The video for this one basically says "Nighttime Driving Song", so who am I to argue with that?

[MWak]

late night on the 101, I just turn on the spanish radio station and blast it with the wind in my hair.

[somitomi]

Patterns has a nice rythmic bass guitar & bongo combination.

By the way I came back to read my own previous suggestions, because I didn't compile them into a playlist before...

[somitomi]

The theme song of Bojack Horseman works well as a driving song. I also found this Born to Die remix recently.

[dubsola]

I feel confident in saying that there is no better music for driving than techno.

[commodorejohn]

My go-to night-time drive music back when was "Echoes" by Pink Floyd.