Sleep Tight, Little Angels | Dani Umpi's Sleepy-Time Podcast

In another town
your clothes are new.
At another party
someone is waiting for you.
(Dani Umpi, "Ideas in mind")

BYOP Hypnagogic Party

Bestie, I know: it's Saturday, you're on your own, and you're broke. What an ordeal getting paid closer to the 10th than the 1st. So here's a good, pretty, and cheap plan to tune into the most effective Uruguayan audio duo. In a small act of deep listening, ride a reverberant wave across the Río de la Plata –gong-like–then slip past the threshold of sleep with this (pilot?) season of Dani Umpi's sleepy-time podcast, directed and sonically produced by Sara Ruiditos and recorded at Tatami Registros. Nine episodes for insomnia or for easing into temporary rest –ideally after you've spiced up your own hypnagogic party. It's BYOP (Bring Your Own Pillow), and it will amplify your alpha and theta waves on a phe-no-me-nal scale.

Believe me, with this podcast I'm defending your sabbath right to rest –after you say your bedside prayers, wander with Dani Umpi's exteriorized interiority: a two-voice dialogue with themself that weaves a theoretical-spiritual-oneiric net for your ears –axons hugging New-Age starlets, dendrites chanting to your favorite Virgin– with the airy depth that preludes sleep. Let yourself spiral entropically around each episode's loose axis. Just don't kick yourself into the hypnopompic by asking about UFOs. Martians are off-limits this season –too "up", like garlic for Ayurveda or coffee for the Quakers. Umpi will riff on spells, theosophy, the spiritual power of a Roland D-50, gentlemen callers, and wandering souls –but not (for now) on whether Jesus was an extraterrestrial from a planet of altruistic non-terrestrial Homo sapiens.

Theoretical Frameworks

If you're unsure about dozing off to Dani & Dani, I crossed the threshold via chapter 6: Enya. "You all know her", he says –and with a stiletto, Umpi carves the portrait: "A great artist –controversial among would-be critics with airs of intellectual superiority who know nothing– because if Enya has anything, it's theory". Unflappable, with that small-town-aunt haircut. Then comes layer upon layer –ever the teacher, never the philosopher–on this singular artist and her creative bond with Nicky and Roma Ryan. Let the Orinoco current carry you, bestie: sail away, sail away, sail away –and fire up the Roland again– until you beach on a lovely conclusion: "That's the Celts for you". I agree.

Bestie, you nodded off –but didn't sleep, right? Keep going. I've been struggling to drift off and am in a very Irish mood, so I moved to episode 3: Sinéad vs. the Lower Astral. One notch less vocoder, one more of religious seeking. "Serious convictions". Did you know O'Connor was ordained in a breakaway church using the Tridentine rite? Is that even possible? Then comes an interdimensional take –social, energetic, and touristic– on pilgrimages and Marian feasts, like the one around Our Lady of Verdún on the hill of the same name in Uruguay. Plus: theosophy for beginners and a loose sketch of how the soul detaches from the body at life's end. Dani puts it this way: "That journey of the soul –the spirit entering the beyond of death. Imagine… I don't know… an installation. There, in the beyond –it sounds crazy, but that's what they say– the soul begins a series of processes, like letting go of memories".

Love the Plot

Bestie, you might say these ideas aren't new, but the cognitive tint of this tight delivery makes them gleam again –like river pearls rinsed in vinegar and re-strung on fresh silk. Reframed as sleep material, they work.

One last flourish: for each episode, Santo Cielo designed and hand-stitched an embroidery with the chapter title and a distinctive symbol –praying hands, gems, a feather, an ear, a snail shell, a twinkling star, a Masonic compass, a dreamcatcher. The fabric? A thrifted pillowcase. Yes –washed before using it as a canvas. An amanuensis gem written in thread and cloth.

So, bestie: a dream party is two or three clicks away –and someone's waiting. Here's the link to listen to Ideas en mente on Spotify.