Moby: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Moby.

Lindsay: I'm Lindsay.

Moby: And this is the awkwardly named Moby Pod. Do I need to say it's awkwardly named or at this point we just, we've accepted its Moby Pod.

Lindsay: I think we've accepted it. I also don't know if it's awkward. I think it's very self-explanatory and that's nice.

Moby: So in any case, I'm Moby,

Lindsay: I'm Lindsay,

Moby: and this is Moby Pod. And I'm not gonna qualify it by saying the awkwardly named Moby Pod, cuz we've established it might not actually be awkward.

Lindsay: Yeah. You don't need to tell us how, how, how we should feel about the title. We can, I know how I feel about it and it's good.

Moby: Okay.

Lindsay: Um, today we're gonna talk about a lot of different things. You'll be surprised and hopefully delighted

Moby: Me? Oh no, the person listening. Okay. Yeah.

Maybe

Lindsay: you. [00:01:00] And we're also gonna go into Moby's experience of anxiety and ambient music. And I feel calm about it. I feel whelmed about it.

Moby: Okay. So we're just gonna talk about anxiety?

Lindsay: Anxiety, ambient music, but then we're also going to talk about some other fun things that will, um, amaze you and shock you.

Moby: And I still can't figure out if you're talking to me or if you're talking to someone listening cause I'm also gonna be amazed and shocked cuz I don't know what we're doing.

Lindsay: That's what makes it fun.

Moby: And also, I know that podcasting is not a visual medium per se, but I would just like to describe what I'm looking at is while we're talking, Bagel the dog is just a few feet away on a couch really trying to make a nest out of my jacket.

And it's, it's uh, she just got a little frustrated.

Lindsay: It got too hard and she was like, yeah, no, fuck this. I'm gonna lay on a pillow. Yeah. Good girl. Okay, well let's, um, let's dive into Moby Pod.[00:02:00]

So Moby, I have noticed that you're very, very open about your struggle with anxiety, which I've never seen. I don't believe it. We all have anxiety, but you are really open with how you struggle with it. But you also do something that I think is really interesting, and I don't know if it's just for you to help manage it or because you've struggled and you know how hard it is that you wanna help other people, but you make a lot of really great and useful ambient music.

And I guess I wanted to ask you why you be doing that?

Moby: Uh, okay. Well, there's a l. A lot to your question, . Um, I mean cuz there's like the whole big issue of anxiety. I first experienced a [00:03:00] panic attack when I was seven years old. And I I'm sure that I had tons of anxiety beforehand because I had a very sort of chaotic childhood.

But I remember being, I remember this so clearly, I was seven years old, so I guess I would've been in the second grade and we had drawing homework, like we're supposed to draw a bunch of things for one part of. Class in the second grade. And I was overwhelmed with the homework. Like I was, I remember it was like, let's say like six 30 or seven o'clock at night and I started crying to my mom and I was like, there's no way I can finish this.

I was seven years old and I was supposed to be drawing elephants or spaceships, and I just remember being so overwhelmed with the enormity of the task, like, how am I ever gonna draw all of these things for tomorrow? My mom, of course, she was understanding, but of course I think she thought this was probably the cutest thing she'd ever seen.

Like a seven, a seven year old with work anxiety.

Lindsay: Yeah. [00:04:00]

Moby: And then I of course was growing up just a very sort of uncomfortable, anxious, high strung, idiosyncratic child. Whether I was more high strung in idiosyncratic than other people, I don't know, cuz I've never lived in anyone else's brain. But then I went to college.

And when I was at college, I started having true panic attacks as in like the difference between anxiety and debilitating panic. Like the panic that you can't escape, the panic that is waiting for you the moment you wake up in the morning, the panic that you need to medicate in order to even get a minute's sleep, like real true panic disorder.

Lindsay: Can I ask? I have had a panic attack also in college. But for someone that hasn't had one, how would you describe the feeling?

Moby: Um, like having your brain, which is normally resting [00:05:00] in a very pleasant unnoticeable liquid, is suddenly surrounded by vicious, terrified, hornets who are buzzing and stinging and buzzing and stinging, and they never stop buzzing and stinging. Like, that's, that's to me what a real panic attack feels like.

Lindsay: Do you ever notice that when you are having a panic attack or when you would have them, that you would have trouble like breathing, like were there physical sensations, would you feel like frozen or like what would happen to your body?

Moby: The main physical sensation for me was numbness at the extremities.

Lindsay: Mm.

Moby: And lightheadedness.

Lindsay: Mm.

Moby: Uh, but my panic. . It was just my body being flooded with unrelenting cortisol or anxiety. Yeah. And like, so I had, like when I was at college having these panic attacks, I would just walk. I would, you know, it's, the only thing I could do is like three o'clock in the morning walk.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: 11 o'clock in the morning, walk five in the afternoon. I just had to [00:06:00] keep walking and I started drinking compulsively because it was the only thing that made the anxiety really go away.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: So I was drunk and walking the entire time until I dropped outta college and moved home. And this hopefully leads us to the wonderful world of ambient music.

Because once I got home, I was such a loser. I was supposed to be finishing my freshman year of college or university, and instead I was home and sleeping on my mom's couch and I was broke and I didn't have a job. And all my friends are off at Yale and Harvard and Princeton, and they're leading their best lives.

And all around this time, my serious girlfriend also broke up with me because I guess she didn't wanna be dating a mentally ill guy, sleeping on his mom's couch. Understand. But it was definitely contributed to my malaise. So I found some things enabled the anxiety to abate or to wane or for me to be able to find some peace in the anxiety.[00:07:00]

Alcohol was a huge part of it. And I'm not advocating drinking, I'm just saying for me, alcohol was a huge part of my, it was my self-medication cuz the other things like benzodiazepins didn't really do much for me. It was alcohol was the only thing that really cut through.

Lindsay: Mm.

Moby: But the other was ambient music.

And at that point, this is the early eighties ambient music. Largely it consisted of Brian Eno. You know, I mean there are other things like Harold Budd and like the B side of David Bowie's albums, Heroes and Low. But for the most part it was Brian Eno and specifically Eno's Ambient one and Ambient four albums.

And I just listened to those over and over and over again, and just really, they've helped everything in my little crazy brain to calm down mm-hmm. . And so then around that time I also started making my own ambient music, which I found to also be very therapeutic, uh, in addition to listening to Brian [00:08:00] Eno's ambient music, making my own ambient music.

And so ever since then, I've made a lot of different types of music from punk rock to dance music, to classical music, to down tempo. , whatever you want to call it, but through it all has always been this return to making ambient music. And then I'll just wrap up. My very long-winded response to your question by saying a lot of what I've been doing for the last 10 years is making the ambient music that I wish other people would make.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: Which is not to malign or criticize other people's ambient music, but a lot of times other people's ambient music can be too demanding for me.

Lindsay: Hmm.

Moby: You know, like sometimes people will put in like loud flute solos or

Lindsay: I'm a big fan of didgeridoo.

Moby: Yeah. So for example, people and I, there's nothing wrong with a good didgeridoo or a flute solo , but sometimes you want ambient music that can sit in the background and just be a soundtrack for calm .

Lindsay: [00:09:00] Mm-hmm.

Moby: And so that's what I've been trying to do. Although the, this new ambient album, it's called Ambient 23, is a little different cuz there are some drums in it. There are some, it's, it's a little more inspired by some of the experimental electronic music I loved in the early eighties.

Lindsay: Wow. Okay. So the ambient music you said was as helpful as alcohol because that feels extreme.

Like alcohol is such a like powerful drug and ambient music was something that really also got under your skin in a way that made you feel better. That's, I mean, also you're a musician, you hear things differently. You experience sound, I think maybe more intensely than the average person, but that's a pretty powerful statement to say that it was that effect.

Moby: I mean, I'll go even further, I'll say that ambient music, I mean ambient music, but also just calming music in general for me. is the most, I say certainly one of the, if not the most effective [00:10:00] healing modality that I know of. So, so like alcohol was great. Running around outside in the middle of the night till I exhaust myself, that could also work.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: but ambient music really it was like being held, it was like being stroked in this way that was so safe and calming. So like even for me and other people have different experiences when I think of like the traditional ways in which people deal with anxiety and I love, like cognitive behavioral therapy is profound and great.

Benzos are perfectly fine and work well, not perfectly fine. They're addictive, but they work really well. For some people. Alcohol can be incredibly powerful. Exercise is great, but for me, music, making music and listening to music is the most powerful way of calming anxiety. .

Lindsay: I love that kind of music. It really does help me it helps me to focus. I don't know if I figured out how to get it to calm me down as a tool, but would you say that like [00:11:00] if you are having a moment where you start to feel anxious, you just pop on some Eno and it and it helps you regulate how you're feeling?

Moby: Yeah. I mean, lately, I'd say honestly, for the last couple of decades, the ambient music that I turn to for self soothing is my own ambient music.

Lindsay: Wow.

Moby: I understand could sound very narcissistic , but it's also that I've created this music for that specific purpose. Yeah. You know, I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to like impress people with my songwriting or my production skills when I'm writing ambient music.

I'm just trying to make music that I think is beautiful and that has the potential to calm me down.

Lindsay: You know how some people say that, like there are certain frequencies that have different effects on the brain? What do you know about that? Do you include anything like that in there, or?

Moby: Well, [00:12:00] yeah. So here's, and I'm not, I'm a, I'm a college dropout, so I'm just gonna repeat what I've heard and what I've learned a little bit.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: which is there. Are certain approaches to frequency, certain approaches to music that can be sort of inherently calming, like long tones are certainly more like a, like a long cello note is certainly more calming than like a super quick staccato violin. But a huge part of the way in which we respond to music is subjective.

Meaning the classic example for me would be someone in texas who grew up listening to speed metal, you know, someone who grew up listening to Pantera and Slayer, they might find that to be calming. So there, I guess you could say there are certain things that seem to be universally, inherently calming, like longer tones, but at the same [00:13:00] time, it's the way the brain responds to music is very, very subjective, so there isn't, I know a lot of like apps and therapists will say there's some magic approach to music that they've patented that is uniquely calming. It's like, but if you play that for someone who doesn't like that type of music, it's not gonna be calming.

Lindsay: It's gonna stress him right out.

Moby: Yeah.

Lindsay: You mentioned once there is a film about the effects of, uh, music on like mental health and physical health?

Moby: Yeah. So what happened there is all my life, I'd been working on music, listening to music, playing music live. You know, music was my life, but I thought it was entertainment , you know, I thought it was profound emotional entertainment, but it's very easy for people to dismiss music.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: everyone loves it. People love it at church. People love, love it at raves, people love it at sporting events. People love it on Peloton, [00:14:00] but it's, a lot of people are very dismissive of it, you know? Cause it's always there. It doesn't really cost anything. And then about 20 years ago, I started working with this organization, the I M N F, so the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function.

And it was started by Oliver Sachs, a famous neuroscientist and his partner. I M N F, uh, Dr. Connie Tomaino to look at music as therapy, but also to do a whole bunch of diagnostic tests to prove the power of music as a healing modality. And what they found is that when music is affecting people emotionally, it's actually affecting their brain.

It's affecting their neurochemistry. And they've done tons and tons of studies with like fancy things like F MRIs and PET scan, you know, positronic emission tomography scans. I think that's what it's called. And showing that like music [00:15:00] decreases stress hormones, it decreases cortisol, it can promote neurogenesis, the growth of the hippocampus.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: you know, and very few things actually promote neurogenesis. You know, neurogenesis being, the brain growing. Most people assumed up until very recently that you had a finite number of brain cells, that's it. You spend your whole life losing them. Turns out exercise, um, a healthy whole food, plant-based diet, music, certain things actually promote neurogenesis and music is one of the most powerful ways of promoting brain growth and brain healing.

Oh. And so, but the movie you're talking about is called Alive Inside and it's was made about 10 or so years ago. And it's a wonderful movie. The I M N F, the Institute for Music Neurologic function didn't make the movie, but they feature prominently in it.

Lindsay: I see. Alive Inside.

Moby: Yeah. And whenever anyone I know has a relative or a loved one who's dealing with Alzheimer's, I always say like, watch [00:16:00] Alive Inside, and immediately enroll your family member or loved one in a music therapy program.

Lindsay: Wow.

Moby: Because there's almost no better way to treat Alzheimer's than music therapy.

Lindsay: And is is music therapy where you're just listening to music? Or do you stick somebody on a piano and just let 'em rip?

Moby: It's everything. It depends on people's capabilities. It depends on people's desires. Like, so for some people it's listening to music.

For some people it's learning an instrument. For some people it's singing in a choir. For some people it's starting a band. Like I remember going up to the Bronx where the I M N F had their headquarters and sitting in on a jam session cause they had these, the clients would have jam sessions. And these are people who are I, I don't know how to, they're people who are really struggling.

And one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen are these jam sessions. You know, so you have like a 92 year old woman who is [00:17:00] aphasic who she can barely function, but she plays tambourine in a jam band with her other fellow clients. You know, in the hospital, and all of a sudden she's smiling and having the best time, and her cortisol levels go down and her functionality comes back remarkably.

Lindsay: Wow.

Moby: That's, it's really, it's, it's actually like the closest thing I've ever seen to like a human miracle are like the effects of music therapy.

Lindsay: Wow. Do you think that at some point you're gonna be like, my brain is too big, I should eat a fried, a fried something.

Moby: So this is why I am profoundly grateful that you're one of my closest friends , but also that we are doing this podcast together, , because Yeah, thank you.

That's what a what a perfect question. Um,

Lindsay: like at some point will you be like, I'm, I'm too smart. I gotta, I gotta reverse the effects of all of this music and plant-based eating.

Moby: Um, I mean, I feel like I still have so [00:18:00] much stress and anxiety that like, I'm not in danger of my brain, like growing and like trying to squeeze out of the little cracks in my skull.

So I, so I love, I love fried food, don't get me wrong, but I don't think I need to start eating fried food to attenuate, neurogenesis.

Lindsay: I mean, if you think about it, the bigger your brain gets, the more aware you are of the things going on in this world. And that is stressful. You know what I mean? So really the smarter you're getting, maybe the more stressed you're getting.

Moby: Uh, it's possible. I mean the, the origins of stress. That's, that's a just a fascinating question. Like to what extent, like where does stress arise? In terms of like what, what areas of the brain, how much of its cognition, how much it's, how much is behavioral?

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: because the fascinating thing, at least I think this is so fascinating, is the brain knows nothing. like the brain has never had a [00:19:00] direct experience of anything.

Lindsay: It's all about how, what you, what you have perceived through your body.

Moby: It's this, you know, it's this fascinating, complicated organ that's locked in the basement, basically, like it's locked in a box and it's connected to the outside world through eyeballs, through skin, through, you know, through sense organs and through hormones.

So the brain is constantly trying to figure out what's going on in the outside world.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: like it's trying, it's, it's looking after us. It's the brain owns us as an organism. This symbiotic thing where like, we look after it, it looks after us, but it's constantly trying to figure out, am I safe? Am I not safe?

The issue there to be overly reductive and simplistic is the brain has filters that have evolved over three and a half billion years. With a set of circumstances that bear no [00:20:00] relation to our circumstances today.

Lindsay: Right? Like we still have the, the neurological functioning and brain functioning of like a person in a cave who's like a bear could come in here at any moment.

Moby: Yeah. And so the simplistic way I describe it is the brain, your brain, my brain, everybody's brains are, nothing in the universe has ever been more complicated than a brain .

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: you know, like that we know of like your brain. My brain. Like these, they're so unbeliev. It's the most complicated super computer that could potentially ever exist, but it still thinks a stick is a snake.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Moby: And it's still ready to stab someone over a parking space at Walmart. You know, like it's, it's performing the most complicated, like a billion complicated functions simultaneously. And it's still ready to get in a fist fight because someone took your parking space, right? Like, so it's both the smartest and the dumbest [00:21:00] organism.

And think about it like for a few billion years, it didn't know about caffeine.

Lindsay: Right

Moby: it didn't know about electric light after dark. It didn't know about screens, it didn't know about images that were not real, you know, like our entire, like how much of our lives, and I feel like we've gone kind of far away from anxiety and ambient music, but how much of our, of everybody's lives are spent responding to information on a screen

Lindsay: Most of many people's lives.

Moby: Yeah. Like whether it's news, whether it's games, whether it's 30 Rock or Game of Thrones, whether it's sports like so much of the way in which we make sense of ourselves and our communities and the world is simply screens.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Moby: And our brain's like, oh, it must be real. I'm having a reaction. You know, like, I'm mad at that sports team, so this must be a real reaction.

It's like, well brain, you've just been fooled by pixels and we all just go along with it. Like, well, it must be real because it's on a screen.

Lindsay: Do you think that the screens [00:22:00] are messing with our biology in the way that like, we should be connecting with other human beings, but we're interacting with stuff that isn't real and our brain is half accepting it as real connection, but it's not really, and that's making us stressed out.

Moby: Both yes, and you could almost say based on a trillion to the trillionth power amount of evidence that what we experience on screens the brain thinks is more real than reality. Certainly seems more interesting than reality. You know, how much time do people spend sitting in their yard looking at the sky as opposed to sitting in their yard looking at a screen?

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: you know, and I love, I mean, trust me, screens are addictive and compelling and remarkable. Um, but there's one facet of screens that might be seem really esoteric, but I think is really interesting.

Lindsay: What?

Moby: Is, apart from the fact that they seem more real than reality is that they're flat. So I [00:23:00] had this experience a few years ago.

I moved to LA and one of the reasons weirdly I moved to LA was to be around nature.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: which very few people moved to LA to be around nature. But like I didn't care about much else regarding Los Angeles. I just love that you can go outside in nature 364 days a year here.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: And there's, one day I went up to the Angeles National Forest and I was hiking and my brain felt different.

Like some, it just feels different like this. It's, it felt nice, but it felt just different than a normal quotidian urban experience. Like I'm out hiking in nature, it's mountains, trees, streams. And I realized I wasn't looking at any flat surfaces. And you realize in nature there's no such thing as a flat surface.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: like there's never been even like something that looks flat when you get up close to it, it's not flat like a piece of rock. Like get up close to it. Like it's certainly not flat, but in nature there are no planes. Meaning [00:24:00] when you look at an environment in nature, you're looking at a visual field.

That is populated in the most infinite way.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: like that, you know, the tree is close to you, but then like the other tree, like nothing's flat. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. .

Lindsay: Yeah.

Moby: And I'm sorry, I don't wanna sound pedantic, but it was, it was such a weird revelation and I realized in nature there's this 360 degree field and every inch of it is populated at a different space.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: Whereas the way that we interact with the world, everything's flat.

Lindsay: You mean on your, on our phones or computers?

Moby: The buildings we make.

Lindsay: Oh, right.

Moby: The walls. We have the streets, the sidewalks, the windows. Everything in our world is flat and I feel like we've. We've cut ourselves off from something like, it's almost like our brain, cuz brains wanna be lazy.

They're like, oh, everything's flat. I guess I don't have to worry about this expanded field of vision.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. .

Moby: But I just wonder if it's, if it's [00:25:00] really, it's like the equivalent of like having an indoor cat. You know, like the cat's like, well I'm an indoor cat. I guess I'm just gonna lie around, be fat. As opposed to I'm gonna go out and run around and climb trees like our, our brain is so now accustomed to caffeine, screen, constant flat surfaces, light after dark that our brains are just like we're all, you could make the case that every human being on the planet who lives in this modern environment is actually mentally ill.

Lindsay: Well, and to bring it back to the ambient music and the less demanding ambient music is that our screens are giving us an amount of information every single day that is unnecessary.

Like we don't need this much information.

Moby: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: it's so much stimulation. And you know, we're looking, we're laying in bed at night, looking at scrolling Instagram before we're going to sleep, and right when we wake up and it's so much information that is, Generally pretty useless. I mean, obviously there's some things that are incredibly valuable that our technology gives us, but for [00:26:00] the most part it's,

Moby: it's a lot of garbage.

Lindsay: It's a lot of garbage. And I, it's too much information. It's taking up all the space in our brains. It's stressing us out. It's making us buy things we don't need know about things that we really just don't need to know about. And I feel like that noise, the general noise of technology is a huge stressor.

Moby: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: more now than ever. But I think even, you know, early when you were, like in college and stuff, you're being thrown a lot of information that you don't need

Moby: and, and then you factor, I completely agree. And then you factor in a sort of, you could almost say like a hereditary, predisposition towards anxiety.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: like our species, like humans, are designed to be anxious. You know?

Lindsay: Yeah. Like, we wouldn't have survived if we didn't have some level of anxiety to say, what was that?

Moby: We're descending from terrified monkeys.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Moby: Like monkeys who were in danger of being eaten by every other thing they encountered.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: monkeys who didn't have enough food, who didn't have have enough water. And those, [00:27:00] those are our ancestors. The ones who were super scared and vicious are the ones who survived. So we're sort of almost like genetically inclined towards terror and anxiety and viciousness. And then you factor in caffeine and screens and light and all these things.

And I know I'm stating the obvious, but it's amazing that we're all just not like curled up in balls crying.

Lindsay: Well, are we not?

Moby: Many . And so bringing it full circle to the utility for not just ambi music, but. , anything that enables the cortisol to be decreased. Anything that enables the amygdala to calm down.

Anything that enables that fight or flight response to calm down. And for me it's spending time with people. I care about spending time with Bagels, a dog going outside and going hiking.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: eating food that's good for me. And making ambient music and listening to ambient music.

Lindsay: Yeah, I mean I think it's an amazing [00:28:00] offering that you've given to this world, but also I love knowing that you're doing it a lot for, for yourself as well.

But I also think it's very Sun Tzu, of filling the empty space. And if you were being prescriptive and figuring out what would work for you to lessen your anxiety and in the process have given plenty of other people a tool to help with their own anxiety or even just focus or. Exercise. Like I think that the ambient music is great for yoga and I've done a couple Peloton classes where a song of your, like a, an ambient song of yours will come up in the yoga class.

And it always is one where I'm like, Ooh, what is that? And then I'm like, oh, holy moly. It's Moby .

Moby: Yeah. It is interesting how, well, insofar as I'm capable of non narcissistically saying something about me is interesting, , but it is odd. Like for example, we are in the process of finishing a movie about punk rock and animal rights.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: and the [00:29:00] music and the punk rock vegan movie is as aggressive as music as ever been.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: And at the same time, I'm finishing a two and a half hour ambient album and working on an ambient app. So it's, one could say that these things might seem contradictory. That all, it all makes sense to me.

And by the way, if it sounds like that's gratuitous promotion, we're giving all this stuff away. So it's like there's no like profit motive to us. Like, I mean the, the punk rock vegan movie is activist driven.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: it's, it's the way of sort of like talking about the history of punk rock and animal rights, but also reminding people of the power and necessity of activism.

But the ambient music, I have to give it away for free. Every now and then someone will buy it on iTunes and it almost hurts me that they feel the need to pay for it. Because the goal with the ambient music, I don't want to create any barriers to anyone being able to use it.

Lindsay: Look, some people I think, have a karmic approach to things where they're like, if I'm using a service karmically, I'd like to [00:30:00] give back.

And so, Money can be a karmic give back.

Moby: Yeah.

Lindsay: So let them have that.

Moby: I get, I just, I hate that anyone ever has to pay money for my ambient music. The one thing I would like to sort of wrap up with is, and it almost goes back to your, the first thing you mentioned is being open about talking about anxiety.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Moby: And part of it is because the misery of true anxiety, and I'm not saying that there's, if someone's not having a panic attack, they're still deal, they're still suffering. Like, I'm not trying to denigrate anyone's experience or suffering, but what I will say to anyone who's listening is, if you are struggling with anxiety, if you are struggling with depression, like it hurts.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: like, usually the responses, people will be like, oh, you know, go out and there are these resources. It's like, but first and foremost, let's just. It's excruciating, you know, depression, anxiety. These are, yes, by all means, avail yourself of the resources and [00:31:00] find benign forms of self-healing and find good types of therapy.

But first and foremost, like the acknowledgement that it's excruciating. Like when I'm suffering, just like you do want someone to help you, but first you just want that compassionate acknowledgement from another person that you're going through something excruciating.

Lindsay: Yeah, I think that's so real, and I think that until you do.

And that is a hard thing to do because I grew up in a way where I wasn't really allowed to acknowledge my own discomfort.

Moby: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: And so it's a big step for me to even say like, oh, this is not good. You know? But I think that step is really, really huge and I think until you take it, you can't even really get into the other resources until you've really like sat with that acknowledgement.

Yeah. It's huge.

Moby: Yeah, you're absolutely right. There is, and, and instead of just being speaking broadly about our culture, but saying like, regarding myself and some of the people we know, there's the immediate inclination of like, oh, if I'm suffering clearly, , uh, you know, like given my bourgeois upbringing or [00:32:00] something, I'm not allowed to suffer.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: or other people are suffering more. So I can't acknowledge my suffering or suffering is a form of weakness. So I'm not gonna look at it. Um, I don't want to indulge it. Or you can say, oh, I'm suffering, therefore I immediately need to do something institutional. You know, when I say meaning like, I need to go to the right doctors.

I need to get the right prescriptions.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: all of these things I just said, they're all valid and legitimate to an extent, but none of them make the suffering less real.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Moby: You know, so if your suffering, if someone is listening, is depressed or anxious and suffering, it's like, just be suffered with yourself and acknowledge that you're suffering, you know, and then, and then figure out how to process it in a way that is actually helpful and hopefully leads to less suffering.

Lindsay: Yeah, totally. And also I feel like there's, there's many. People you can call. There's a lot of free resources for people. But again, like until you have, you're able to say, this is what I'm going through. That's when you can go [00:33:00] and find the things that will help you. And I really do believe that like, especially because of all the things we were talking about with like stimulation and how much space is being taken up in our brains, that tools like ambient music are so unbelievably helpful.

Anything that helps you find a little bit of like quiet and calm.

Moby: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: is huge.

Moby: I completely agree.

Lindsay: Good.

Okay. Moby. I would like for you to do something that you've done before, but I really want you to do it again.

Moby: Oh, that was the sound of me being nervous.

Lindsay: Yeah, it was good. You have to compliment someone. And I get to pick the person that you're complimenting.

Moby: Oh boy.

Lindsay: It can't be backhanded.

Moby: Okay. Like, so for, if you were to say Donald Trump, I couldn't say like, wow, thank you for [00:34:00] having dinner with Kanye and some other crazy anti-Semite and reminding the world that you're unfit to hold public office.

Like it can't be one of those sort of like, thank you for being terrible backhanded things.

Lindsay: Exactly. You can't say that. And just a sidebar, and I don't know if you know this, but that guy Fuentes ?

Moby: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: said that he as an incel

Moby: Oh, he's an incel too? So he's, he's not just a horrible Nazi anti-Semite. He's also an incel?

Lindsay: Yes.

Moby: He's, he's kind of like saying like, oh, like my Ebola got herpes.

Lindsay: Exactly. He says that straight sex is gay because all sex is gay. And actually he as a person that doesn't have sex, is the straightest person of all.

Moby: I don't, I can't follow that, but at the same time, like why would you expect, like if you turn on a faucet and it produces like syphilis, diarrhea, water, why would you be surprised if it also [00:35:00] produces ebola water?

Lindsay: No. You're like, I'm, I'm not surprised. It's almost entertaining at that point where I'm like, oh yeah, this guy's just really full of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life.

Moby: What I'd like to know is like he and Kanye are now like besties. Like what do they talk about? Like is it just, are they just talking about their, like how much they love being anti-Semites or.

Are they talking about how nice it is to like hold hands with their anti-Semitic, significant others while like watching videotapes of Klan rallies or something? Like what? Like what?

Lindsay: So I think they have plenty to talk about. I don't think that either of them, like respect or appreciate women. Like all the stuff came out about Kanye showing picture, like nude pictures of his wife to the people that work for him.

Like really gnarly. Like I'm sure they have plenty to discuss.

Moby: I, I do wonder like when they're in Kanye's private plane flying around, going to steakhouses or whatever, I assume they do. Like, what is the conversational banter or are they both just sort of obsessing over social media?

Lindsay: I would say it's probably a little combo [00:36:00] platter of all

Moby: Hmm.

Lindsay: A little buffet, if you will.

Moby: What are like, what are these, what are these? Right wing lunatics. Talk about, Hmm. I guess we'll never know. Okay, so, so complimenting someone...

Lindsay: So you need to compliment a person in a non backhanded way.

Moby: Okay.

Lindsay: And I'm gonna pick the person.

Moby: Okay. And then when we're done, I'm gonna pick someone for you.

Lindsay: Okay, great. The person I am picking is, Tomi Lahren.

Moby: Okay. Well first off, what makes it easy to compliment her is I don't know who she is, so I'm gonna compliment her.

Lindsay: You don't know who she is? Okay.

Moby: Then being so insignificant that I don't actually know who she is. So thank you for even, I assume she's terrible, but thank you for being not terrible enough that I'm not actually aware of who she is. Thank you, Tomi Lahren, is that how you pronounce her name?

Lindsay: Uh, I think so.

Moby: I guess I'm giving her a backhanded compliment by like, I'm thanking her for being terrible and insignificant as opposed to terrible, and insignificant.

Lindsay: Maybe it is, but I also like it, so I'm [00:37:00] gonna let it stand.

Moby: Okay. So I, so I compliment her for being like I'm, cause I'm assuming when all these people, like the Marjorie Taylor Greens, like they go out of their way to be as publicly terrible as they possibly can.

And so by not knowing who they are, it sort of is a way of saying like, thank you for being bad at what you do.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Moby: Which is such a backhand. I, I, I, cause I don't know who, I don't know who. She's like, maybe. Thank you for having what? I've never heard of a lady named Tomi.

Lindsay: T o m i.

Moby: So it's like too much information, but too Oh, much information.

Um, okay. No, I have no idea who she is.

Lindsay: Great. I think that

Moby: I'm, I'm thrilled. I love my ignorance so much.

Lindsay: To her, that may be the worst thing you could possibly have said. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I like that.

Moby: Like, is, does she have, does she sell, sell things on qvc? Is she on?

Lindsay: She's a, I think she's a, she's some sort of talking head type of person maybe on Fox News, but on some other, Network.

I don't know. But she basically says like, the most [00:38:00] like dirty, low, awful things that you could possibly say,

Moby: okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna enjoy my ignorance in not knowing who she is. Okay, so now you have to pay a compliment to Kid Rock.

Lindsay: Kid Rock sang a very heartfelt song with Sheryl Crow and I love Sheryl Crow.

Thinking of you, for a long time it was like a duet.

Moby: They dated for a while. Didn't they?

Lindsay: that slapped. What?

Moby: They dated.

Lindsay: Did they? See, that I don't like.

Moby: Okay. Sorry, I'm not,

Lindsay: Sheryl Crow is a queen, goddess, angel.

Moby: Mm-hmm. ,

Lindsay: like alien from another planet. Perfection. Like, how does she even exist? I love her so much deeply. Like sometimes I have dreams about her playing an accordion barefoot in my pottery studio. And we are in love. And that's, that's the dream I have

Moby: So yeah. So she and Kid Rock dated, they sang. So that's your compliment to Kid Rock is that he's

Lindsay: sang a song with Sheryl Crowe and I love Sheryl.

So,

Moby: so you're saying like, can you, can you phrase that as a compliment? Is [00:39:00] it compliment or

Lindsay: a compliment?

Moby: Okay.

Lindsay: Um, Kid Rock. Good job getting Sheryl Crow to sing a song with you. That's a cool thing that you did.

Moby: Okay. It's a pretty nice compliment.

Lindsay: I think so.

Moby: I mean, I guess if I had to compliment Kid Rock, I would say in 1999 we played a festival together somewhere off the coast of Washington State.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: and he, I was on the second stage. He was on the main stage and I had decided that I hated him.

Lindsay: That makes sense.

Moby: Because I thought he was just like this. I thought he was in the same vein as these sort of like these rape rock, misogynistic, homophobic performers who were popular at that time.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: and I wandered over and I watched his show, and I have to say like he might be a creepy Republican.

He might not be very smart. He might just be some scary Trump supporting friend of Sarah Palin. But in 1999, Boy. Oh boy. His live show was great.

Lindsay: Really? What did he do? That was great.

Moby: [00:40:00] It was just so entertaining. It was, it was like a vaudeville show. It was like,

Lindsay: what?

Moby: Like just so much weird stuff going on stage, and I was really surprised it wasn't what I expected.

So that's, I will say that about Kid Rock. Like he, he really did put on a fantastic live show in 1999 when I saw him play live.

Lindsay: Well, that's a very, that's a very nice thing to say. He had a very good year that year. I remember it.

Moby: So he sold, he, oh, sorry. What do you remember?

Lindsay: No, I just remember how. How much of a thing he was, everyone was just out in the streets, like Bawitdaba

Moby: And then 1999, I somehow got invited to DJ at the MTV Music Award. So I was in the lobby DJing

Lindsay: Cool.

Moby: Which was the weirdest thing in the world. So like the award shows happening in Lincoln Center, and I was out in the lobby by myself.

Lindsay: Weird.

Moby: And every now and then the camera would cut to me playing records in the lobby.

It was very strange. But Kid Rock was the opening act and he [00:41:00] played with Run DMC and Aerosmith. And I just remember thinking like he, at this point, he had sold 10 million copies of it, that album. And I was like, how could anyone be bigger? Like what a huge star. And then he somehow just sadly became this Trump supporting friend of Sarah Palin.

Like, what a weird path. But

Lindsay: it's very, very strange. But you know, I think there are some people that like that about him. One assumes, yeah. Poor Sheryl Crow. She has incredible taste in music, but terrible taste in dating.

Moby: Does she actually play accordion or is this just your fantasy?

Lindsay: She actually plays accordion.

Moby: Oh, okay. I thought, I didn't know if you're, like, it was just only in your fantasy she played accordion. Like it was your private moment with Sheryl Crow where like she's barefoot in your pottery studio, playing accordion, that she's never played for anyone else.

Lindsay: Yeah, no, she, uh, there's a video of Lilith Fair that's like Sarah McLaughlin being like, this is why I started this.

And Sheryl Crow is, it's like Sheryl Crow, Indigo Girls, um, and a bunch of other amazing people. I think Jewel shows up at some point. It's [00:42:00] incredible, but there's this whole thing with Sheryl Crow. She's singing a song with Indigo girls. She's singing all of her songs with her. No shoes, big accordion, all the feelings.

Her dog is there. Just really, she's really checking all the boxes.

Moby: Wow.

Lindsay: Yeah, she's special.

Now I just need you to apologize and not to the animals for not doing enough because you did that already and I agree with it, but I know your head will go there immediately. Just say you're sorry to somebody.

Moby: Ah boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh, okay. This is, maybe I should keep this to myself, but I, okay. I will

Lindsay: No, tell everyone.

Moby: So I will apologize to, over the years, I've [00:43:00] been a very difficult person to work with and be friends with , like, for a lot of people, I mean, oh, that's very broad. But like in hindsight, like, and what's, what's frustrating now is there are times like, as you know, like we work with, we have like these calls with people we work with

Lindsay: mm-hmm.

Moby: and I find myself being quite unpleasant at times and I'm like, oh, you're doing it again. Like you're being a dick. Like stop it. Stop being unpleasant to people like, so I will apologize to everyone I've been friends with and everyone I've worked with where I've just been really unpleasant.

Lindsay: Wow.

Moby: In hindsight, I'm so aware of it and I'm, I'd like to not be that way, but hopefully as time has passed, I've become less unpleasant to people.

But I've definitely got an unpleasant streak with people I've been friends with and I've worked with. And I would apologize to all of my past friends and people I've worked with for [00:44:00] being unpleasant.

Lindsay: That's a really sweet thing to say,

Moby: but it's true. Like, and especially when it keeps happening, I'm like, come on.

Like why are you doing it again? Like you and I do it on a regular basis. If only everyone was perfect, then I wouldn't have to be unpleasant.

Lindsay: Your version of perfect

Moby, I know you've got a lot of 'em, but are there any life hacks you care to share? Any new life hacks?

Moby: Oh boy.

Lindsay: Anything you're doing that,

Moby: and I would very much like to hear if you have any life hacks as well. Um, okay. My life hack. Uh, okay. Here's one. My life hack is that I do everything in my power to take bioorganic material like old kale.

Um, apple cores. [00:45:00] Like when you go out and you trim a plant, I make sure that none of it gets thrown away and that everything gets composted in my soil around my house. So I don't have a compost area. What I do is I sort of take this biomaterial and just throw it in parts of my property and let it like decay on its own.

Lindsay: Wow. So that's why occasionally Bagel will bring us a really old carrot.

Moby: That has happened once. Yeah. We're like, and it's how we realize she loves broccoli stems cuz she found some composting broccoli and came over like she was so proud that she'd found this broccoli stem.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm rotting broccoli .

Moby: And so now every time I see Bagel, I make sure to give her fresh broccoli stems.

So

Lindsay: I think that's nice. I mean, I don't see the downside to that.

Moby: Yeah. And also when I sweep, like of course leaves, clippings, whatever, like everything goes right back into the soil. Like, so my home, in terms of like my landscaping, it's a complete zero waste home. Anything that falls on the [00:46:00] ground, anything that's like, so I don't have food garbage.

All the food garbage for the most part goes right back into the compost in my soil. But also, okay, so this might be an entire other episode, but I had this profound epiphany while I was sweeping leaves back into the soil.

Lindsay: Okay.

Moby: And by the way, it's one of the most relaxing things in the world. Like I don't use a leaf blower.

I don't put, like, one thing that gulls me is when I see people putting leaves in plastic bags to be thrown away, I'm like,

Lindsay: that's really sad and annoying.

Moby: I'm like, the, the leaves are just put, put them on the ground, they will decay and they turn into soil. So

I was sweeping leaves, putting them back into the soil, and all of a sudden I felt this phenomenal, like for a brief moment, I had no fear of death and mortality because I was like, oh.

Everything is part of a system. Like, and you can almost say that humanity, the biggest problem with humanity is we've [00:47:00] broken ourselves away from an ancient system of like, things live, they die. And when they're alive, they're maintaining an existing system and when they die, they get returned to that system the way a leaf does or a tree.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: and nothing is individual. Like everything is simply part of that biological, sustaining system. And I think with humans, like we've both removed ourselves from it, but somehow believed that we don't need to be a part of it or we can improve on it and like it's real hard to improve on a forest that is completely self-sustaining and, and cooling the air and providing a home for a trillion different creatures like and without death .

That forest would die paradoxically, like death is what sustains life. You by definition, can't have life without death. And as I was sweeping leaves into the soil, it just became so clear to me for a brief moment. All I could think [00:48:00] about when it came to death was like how fascinating it is to be a part of that system as opposed to something to be feared.

So you asked about a life hack and I end up

Lindsay: death hack .

Moby: To me, it's one of the most interesting aspects of our lives is that the way to which we are separated from the actual nature of biological existence.

Lindsay: Yeah. It's a real bummer.

Moby: It's a real bomb. Yeah. It leads to complete catastrophe and an and environmental degradation.

And misery. And sickness and

Lindsay: Bummer.

Moby: Yeah.

Lindsay: So Mo, we've talked a lot about ambient music, and we talked about your anxiety, but I thought it would be really freaking cool if you would. , walk us through how you would build a song. I mean, to me it's just so fascinating and I don't know the first thing about it, so I don't know if that's something you [00:49:00] would be kind enough to walk me through.

Moby: Yeah, sure. So one thing about this ambient track that we're going to sort of deconstruct and reconstruct is it's all in stereo. And so our suggestion is that you have a decent pair of stereo headphones or earbuds because some of the effects we're gonna be playing with will really only make sense in stereo.

Lindsay: Well put.

Moby: So in a way I approach making ambient music very differently than I would normally approach making other types of music. I mean, first off, there's almost never any vocals in an ambient piece of music. There's almost never any drums. And the idea is kind of inspired by this old Eric Satie idea that like, it's, it's music that, that will ideally just sort of sit in the background.

You know, hopefully it's interesting enough that if someone, if you do pay attention to it, it's not just musical wallpaper, but the [00:50:00] album I just put out, Ambient 23. I think some of the music is more, it's a little more complicated. So do you want to, do you want me to start playing the multi-track session from one of the pieces on Ambient 23?

Lindsay: Heck fricking yeah, I do.

Moby: So we'll start off with one simple synth sound. Do you hear that?

Lindsay: I do.

Moby: Okay. And I'm going to put some effects processing on it where I take the high frequencies and sort of almost get rid of most of them. Do you hear how this, the, the sound in a way I would describe as it's becoming sort of quieter and calmer?

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. .

Moby: So I do that a lot in ambient music. Like, it's almost the way of instantly taking almost any sound and making it calm is you just put this low pass filter where it takes [00:51:00] all the high end off and you hear how it's just becomes very calm, right?

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: um, hopefully to the point where it's nice.

And then there's another trick that I do is take the entire signal and bring it down an octave. Do you how it's starting? Like there's this low tone coming in.

Lindsay: Ooh. Yeah, I like that.

Moby: So I'm just gonna get rid of the original tone and we're only going to hear the pitched down version. So if I was to go, like if I wanted to make something I could sleep to, this is what I would probably make.

Lindsay: It's like, um, it's kind of like when people sleep with a fan on

Moby: mm-hmm.

Lindsay: or something. It has that same kind of like low hum. That's really

Moby: Yeah.

Lindsay: Comforting.

Moby: Yeah. Just completely and obtrusive. So let's go [00:52:00] back to the original sound. We're gonna bring that back in as well. So here's one of the melodies.

Isn't making ambient music fun?

Lindsay: Yeah, it's nice. It feels great. I'm like out here having an impromptu meditation and

Moby: I can bring the high end back in a little bit.

Lindsay: So let me ask you this. When you bring that high end back in

Moby: mm-hmm.

Lindsay: does it become a different song in your mind? Uh, like, is that, does it have a different effect, you know, that you're trying to achieve?

Moby: I guess the effect is to me it's almost like what the, in a way it's hard to explain cuz it's [00:53:00] very, even though it's technical, it's obviously emotional and subjective.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: like, if we were to take this, what we're listening to right now, like I could also take the original sound out and we end up with something very vulnerable.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Moby: like it's kind of delicate and I could even try a different effect that makes it,

Lindsay: whoa.

Moby: Um, do you have any questions at this point?

Lindsay: Yes. My question is, [00:54:00] did these, are these sounds just coming out of like just a regular keyboard or how did you make, how did you come? Is it just, what is it coming out of? Like how did it make the original sound?

Moby: So, here, let me, okay. What I'm gonna do, it's gonna be.

Not quite as pretty and relaxing for a second. I'm gonna play you all of the sounds in this session.

Lindsay: Okay?

Moby: So have this one which was created by an old analog synth synthesizer from 1970s called a CS 80. And it's going, it's going through reverb and delay and pitch. So that's, that's sound one. Now this is sound two,

which is the same. Synth playing a different part. This would be sound three.[00:55:00]

That's a more modern digital synthesizer. Sound four is the same as sound three, but pitched down.

And then sound five is another digital modern synth that's, it's a little more epic sounding. And then sound six is this. And a also, I think I'm aware of the fact that maybe I'm not answering your question, but also that a lot of these sounds sound very similar.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. ,

Moby: here's sound seven.

And you might be asking yourself why all of these sounds that are very similar. And when I was working on it, each one in my little brain. Served its own purpose. Um, so [00:56:00] here's, I'll slowly bring all of them in together and when they're all in together. I think you'll understand how it, it almost creates an orchestral quality.

So that's all seven of the sounds playing together to create kind of what I think is a, both a beautiful but calming sort of hold.

Lindsay: It's working on me.

Moby: Is that, does that, does that address your question? I mean, it's hard cuz if, if it was visual I could show you the synthesizers and it would make a lot more sense. So it just, it's a little tricky when I'm describing different sounds made by different [00:57:00] synthesizers when it all kind of sounds the same.

Lindsay: And this is a very dumb question, and I apologize to literally everyone who's gonna roll their eyes really hard when they hear it. But just to be clear, a synthesizer is just a synthetic string instrument.

Moby: That's a gr That's actually a great question. Um, a synthesizer is, The most, the easiest way to understand it is it's an electronic instrument.

I mean, someone could be really pedantic and say, it doesn't have to be an electronic instrument. It could be non instrument, it could be unconventional, but usually it means an electronic keyboard that's capable of synthesizing non-organic sounds. Although in the [00:58:00] world of digital synthesis, the sounds would have a little bit more of an organic origin, but it's generally, it's synthesizing or creating sounds that don't exist in the natural world.

Lindsay: Whoa.

Moby: Um, sometimes they sound exactly like sounds that exist in the natural world, and sometimes they're very much based digitally on sounds in the natural world, but it's all coming from either an analog or digital processing source.

Lindsay: That does help.

Moby: Um, and you know what we're gonna do that's gonna be real, that you're gonna really enjoy what, because I know that this is one of your favorite things.

Lindsay: What ?

Moby: We are going to do, that fun panning thing that you love.

Lindsay: Ooh, I do love that.

Moby: Our nice pretty sound. And I'm gonna add in that panning that you love.

Lindsay: I love it so much.[00:59:00]

Moby: Okay, now I'm gonna add in the panning that you love so much.

Lindsay: Okay? Okay.

Oh my God. That's the best in the whole world. Oh yeah.

Oh my God. It's the best thing ever.

Moby: Um, and that panning, it's the easiest effect. You can make it go real fast if you want.

Lindsay: Whoa, . Oh my God, I love that so much.

Moby: Um, I can also make it [01:00:00] be a little less wide, so it's just a, a sort of subtle effect. What do you, I mean, you tell me what you like. Slow, fast, wide. Not,

Lindsay: I like the, um, I like this one. This one's really good. Yeah. The panning thing is so amazing to me. I don't know, is there anyone? Because to me it just feels so, it feels like getting a sort of like massage or something, but I wonder if there's anyone that doesn't like that.

To me, I just, it feels so good. But I also am big into, I'm a very like, like I love ASMR I love any sort of like auditory experiencing. So maybe that's a small, a more niche thing. I don't know. Is there anyone that, that is not into it?

Moby: Maybe someone it, it. Upset their equilibrium. I dunno. I mean, I, I love it.

I honestly, until you had mentioned how much you like panning, I had sort of forgotten that this effect even exists [01:01:00] and how dramatic it is. But also it's the, it's the, it, it only has three controls. Can I'm gonna stop for one second.

Lindsay: Okay.

Moby: And add another effect that, that you might enjoy.

Lindsay: Oh, holy moly.

Moby: Uh, maybe not.

It might, it might be too, it might, it might not work. But let me, let me stop for one second and I'm gonna add this other thing and see what you think.

Lindsay: Okay. I also really wanna put these headphones on, Bagels ears and see if she likes it.

I'm going to do it in just a second. Okay.

Moby: Okay. So I'm gonna try and add some more effects and you can tell me what you like.

Lindsay: Okay,

Moby: so first we're gonna add some stereo delay and you can tell me what you think.

Lindsay: Okay.

Moby: Too subtle?

Lindsay: [01:02:00] I, yeah, I don't really know what you did. What's stereo delay?

Moby: Here's this is with it in, and here it's out.

So, okay. So that's stereo delay. So, okay. So your verdict on that is, it's probably way too subtle. And now here we're gonna add reverb.

Lindsay: Okay.

Moby: A big reverb.

Lindsay: Okay.

Moby: And it's hope. It'll probably, hopefully feel very expansive.

Lindsay: Oh, okay.

Moby: Or we might not notice anything.

Lindsay: Ooh.

Whoever's listening to this is gonna be like, oh my god. Lindsay, shut up. I'm trying to [01:03:00] enjoy this . Sorry guys. Okay. I'm gonna see if Bagel likes it.

Moby: Okay, so for the record, I'm not sold on this putting headphones on Bagel, but I

Hi Bagel. I assume Bagel can hear me.

Lindsay: Honestly, she was so calm through that I think I felt her blood pressure go down while she had the headphones on and they fit her perfectly, by the way,

Moby: So that is essentially how we make an ambient track.

Lindsay: This is great. Thanks Moby for, for walking us through this ambient soundscape [01:04:00] experience.

Moby: Um, my pleasure. Should we just, uh, for anyone who's listening, maybe it would. Maybe they just, it would just be enjoyable to just

Lindsay: sit with it for a minute. Do you wanna just like explore some tunes for a minute? For

Moby: Well, maybe I've, I'm, I'm, I'm, we've got about another minute left on this particular track, so maybe I'll just, let's just

Lindsay: let it play out.

Moby: Yeah.[01:05:00]

Lindsay: That was really fun, Moby, what a fun episode we had.

Moby: Yeah I love doing these, especially as we were talking about anxiety. My hope is that somehow we are able to bring peace and or comfort or at least the option of peace and comfort to someone who might need it.

Lindsay: Yeah, I really hope that too. That's a really nice thing to say.

Moby: I don't know if that makes me sound like a sad, old hippie, but hopefully we can entertain people but also let people know who are suffering, that they're not alone, that other people are going through it.

Lindsay: Yeah. Unless you're Tomi Lahren, in which case I hope that, um,

Moby: I don't know who that is. We've, we've determined like how

Lindsay: she has a lot of anxiety and that it's really hard for her.

Moby: I don't think that that's a real person.

Lindsay: Sorry. That's not a very nice thing to say.

Moby: Yep. And also because she's not a real person, it doesn't matter. I've never heard of her. Therefore, in my solipsistic world, she doesn't exist.

Lindsay: If you have any [01:06:00] questions or comments or anything like that that you would like for us to address in future episodes, you can send us an email at MobyPod@Moby.com and

Moby: what was that email address again?

Oh, I'll tell you. It's MobyPod@Moby.com. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We're really, really happy that you're here with us, even still. That's amazing. Follow through. Um, I wanna thank, uh, Jonathan Nesvadba for editing and being amazing. And I want to thank the fine folks over at Human Content for all of the nice work they do.

And I wanna thank Moby for being Moby

Yeah, . Okay. Well thanks everybody and we will see you figuratively speaking next time.[01:07:00]