Music
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The best albums to fall asleep to
Featuring Max Richter, Grouper, Sigur Ros and more – add these albums to your nighttime playlizzzt
While many people like to drift off to the familiar comfort of an audiobook or the quiet conversation of a podcast, listening to certain kinds music can be especially helpful in falling into a deep slumber. Picking the right album for sleep can help to instantly de-stress and unwind, deflect busy or negative thoughts while also helping to extend restorative deep sleep phases.
The connection between music and sleep has not been lost on many musicians, least of all German-British composer and pianist Max Richter, who released his soporific epic Sleep in 2015. This September, in celebrating the work’s 10 year anniversary, audiences will have the opportunity to lay down in a bed of their own in London’s Alexandra Palace and connect to a live performance in a way unlike they’ve ever experienced before as Richter and his orchestra perform the album overnight in its biggest ever showing.
Until then, you can find our other favourite albums to fall asleep to below.
Max Richter – Sleep
The clue is certainly in the name in Richter’s conceptual magnum opus. Conceived in 2015, when Richter and his partner Yulia Mahr consulted with neuroscientist David Eagleman, Sleep is an eight and a half hour experience that mirrors the experience of sleep like the rippled reflection of the moon on water. It of course helps to guide us into the sleeping state, an effect that is undoubtedly key to its popularity, but beyond that it is an interesting experiment in considering what our unconscious self appreciates and enjoys. Listening to tracks like ‘Never Fade Into Nothingness Pt.6’ while awake, it becomes clear the album is emotionally complex and isn’t just a comforting lullaby.
There have been some remarkable performances of the album in full, such as a London showing at the Welcome Collection, where audience members watched from beds, setting the record for the longest broadcast of a single piece of music. It’s also been performed in places such as The Great Wall of China and the Sydney Opera House.
Sigur Ros – Ágætis byrjun
Surely one of the most beautiful albums ever created, Sigur Ros’ second album seems to capture the feeling of falling into slumber, as the organs and distorted guitar of ‘Svefn-g-englar’ slowly expand, until finding yourself in a world of dreams. In ‘Starálfur’, for example, Jónsi sings in his native Icelandic of putting on his pyjamas, stretching the covers over himself and seeing a little elf looking at him.
Jon Hopkins – Opalescent
The debut album from revered English composer and producer Jon Hopkins is a shimmering sound bath that eschews the darker depths of his later material, instead luxuriating in a cosmic ambience perfect for unwinding and drifting off.
Ludovico Einaudi – I Giorni
Experiencing a Ludovico Einaudi concert is anything but dozy, the Italian maestro an expert in arresting and beguiling with his goosebump-inducing performances. While some of his songs might be considered too emotive for winding down for the night, much of his work drifts and lulls gently in a soothing fashion. 2001’s I Giorni has an especially delicate flow, with songs such as ‘Inizio’ and ‘Limbo’ fluttering and cascading as if on the precipice of dreams.
Men I Trust – Untourable Album
The hushed tones of Men I Trust’s Emmanuelle Proulx are like an easing whisper on the band’s lo-fi dream pop. With downtempo bobs such as ‘Sorbitol’, ‘Serenade of Water’ and ‘Before Dawn’, 2021’s Untourable Album is probably the band’s most gentle album, though none of their discography is likely to start you awake.
Grouper – Ruins
For two decades now, Liz Harris, aka Grouper, has been weaving heady and hypnotic sounds into a trance-inducing, ambient-folk quilt. Ruins, her tenth album, was recorded in Portugal and features plenty of external ambience, such as the chirps of frogs, crickets and birds, which fills the space between gentle and thoughtful melodies sung above a soft-edged piano.
Jessica Pratt – Quiet Signs
The wobble of the piano chords in the opening of Jessica Pratt’s Quiet Signs immediately hints to a different time or space, away from the now and coddled in a kind of dreamy warmth. But the instrumentation pales in comparison to the dissociative power of the Californian singer’s singular voice, a gentle and otherworldly style that forces the listener to close their eyes to truly grasp it.
Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex
An album to fall asleep to with a lover in your arms, Cigarettes After Sex’s 2017 debut is a syrupy beauty floating in reverb and romance. Greg Gonzalez’s dulcet, androgynous voice is tranquil as it sits perfectly in the album’s tender production.
Mazzy Star – So Tonight That I Might See
There is something so pacifying and wistful about Hope Sandoval’s voice that even when this classic Mazzy Star album drifts away from scintillating ballads into bluesy guitar solos or droney psychedelia, we remain under her hypnotic spell.
Hayden Pedigo – I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away
Hayden Pedigo’s raspy, finger-picking guitar style is part of the American primitive tradition, an intricate and thoughtful way of playing that musters imagery of sprawling landscapes. The guitarist’s latest album, I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away, captures a feeling of contentment with both whimsy and depth, as if you’re hearing it straight from a sleepy afternoon on a Texan porch.
Khruangbin – Hasta El Cielo
Since the release of their acclaimed debut ten years ago, Khruangbin have risen the ranks to boss-level chillers, soundtracking many a sunny afternoon in the park and laid-back gathering. While all of their albums have gentle enough production and melodies to transport you to the land of nod, this 2019 remix album is drenched in dub effects, slower and sparser than the original, Con Todo El Mundo, and even more fitting for a woozy nap.
Nils Frahm – Music For Animals
When the German pianist Nils Frahm released Music For Animals in 2022, he stated that its name points fun at streaming playlist culture and “a certain frustration with the functional use of music these days.” Sorry, Nils, though this album is not made specifically for sleep or any other bodily function, its three-hour long, meditative and breathy glow makes a perfect accompaniment to nodding off.
Youth Lagoon – The Year Of Hibernation
From Trevor Power’s unique falsetto to the twinkly instrumentation and simple, catchy melodies, Youth Lagoon’s 2011 debut The Year Of Hibernation has an indisputably childlike quality. Listen to songs such as ‘Afternoon’, ’17’ and ‘Cannons’ and you can basically see a crib mobile hanging above you. Embrace the infantilising cosiness; shh, everything’s going to be OK…
