Ecstatic kickdrum therapy and full-bodied emotional regulation with the song on repeat.
This article was originally published at Benny Got Burnout.
I’m driving home from dinner tonight, happy in my own company after enjoying a Vietnamese dinner of tofu and vegetables with rice noodles out by myself, at the same restaurant I went to last week with my son where we saw the meteor. There seems to be something auspicious about this place.
My car stereo is the best sound system I have, and the car is my hermetically sealed personal nightclub. Random tracks play loudly on the car stereo from my electronic music playlist, 850+ bangers across multiple genres from the early-90s to the present day, all of them lovingly curated through years of raving and (as I’ve gotten older) listening to live sets in podcast form.
As I drive home from the Vietnamese restaurant and turn onto the road toward my house, this song comes on – Trapeze (Arty Intro Mix) by Ferry Tayle and Static Blue – and something fundamental changes inside me. I drive past my street and hit repeat on the song. Then hit repeat again. And again. And again. I’m in a trance and I must keep driving.
This happens to me once or twice a year, always when I’m driving, usually at night, when I’m in the suggestable state of a happy mood. A song from my playlist hits at just the right emotional pitch, at just the right moment, and I’m hypnotised.
The music weaves its way through my body, capturing heart and mind in the process of my enmeshment with the beat. To be clear, this is not the type of ecstatic experience that I’ve felt on hallucinogens, though it’s equally powerful.
I can’t listen to the song just once. I play it on repeat thirty times over, sometimes more. I’m driving safely, perfectly present while space-time folds in on itself, in the world but not of the world as the music assumes control of my nervous system. Elegies to altered states of consciousness and the cliches of music industry PR seem trite in comparison to the reality I’m immersed in. It’s not for nothing that they call this music genre “trance”.
Unlike most electronic music tracks that begin with the kickdrum and build layers on top, Trapeze (Arty Intro Mix) initiates softly with an atmospheric harmonic layer, with an aethereal vocal sample folding into the harmony after four bars. The vocals are so beautiful, embracing me like a tender hug from the love of my life at peak MDMA blow out. I’m enchanted with this song, and it hasn’t even introduced any kickdrum yet.
A synth triplet builds on the harmonic layer, as background textures add depth to the sound, then a meaty double-time bassline rumbles in, followed by a dreamy lead melody consisting of a melodic chord progression ringing on every second offbeat, like strikes on a set of Tibetan singing bowls. This melody entwines itself around a ball of lightning in the back of my neck, shooting chills all the way down my spine.
A soft snare drum on each beat builds the urgency, then quickens to double-time as the background textures climb to a crescendo. My heart centre glows while my third eye vibrates with the rhythmic hum of the harmonic layer. I can feel every element of the song as physical sensations.
As the build-up reaches its crescendo, all the other layers drop away to emphasise the lead melody.
Then the beat drops.
My heart centre explodes, with joy and love radiating from my chest out across my body as the kickdrum explodes into the song. The lead melody rides on top of a driving groove of a reverberating bassline sizzling in and out on every offbeat, given further emotional urgency by the closed high-hat cymbals and a cinematic harmonic layer.
The immensity of the proprioceptive feedback between me and the music is extraordinary. My head and shoulders involuntarily rock to the beat of the kickdrum, as my midriff ripples to the bassline and knees tap against the car door and the centre console in a coordinated rhythmic stim. My immersion in the patterns and layers of the music is total, registering every sample on its own terms as well as its place in concert with the track as a whole.
Rarely do I feel so regulated. It’s a mystical experience with a smart phone, a car stereo samadhi. I’m smiling and happy crying and pumping my fist as the song winds down, knowing I’ve been witness to something special. For someone who has trouble verbalising intense emotions in the moment, the music is the heart language that unlocks the emotions trapped within.
Damn, this song is such a fucking anthem.
Listen. Rush. Repeat.
I keep driving to prolong the experience.
AI disclosure statement: Grok image generator was used to create the thumbnail image for this article.
Benjamin Habib, PhD 