Podcast Corner: Joe Pera will help put you to sleep
Joe Pera presents the Drifting Offv podcast. (Picture: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
Joe Pera is an interesting character, known for his gentle sketches with Adult Swim that you can find down the YouTube wormhole. He also might be the last voice that people hear as they drift off to sleep. The 2019 video ‘Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep for 10 Hours’ has over 10m views. We’ve talked about sleepytime podcasts before but there’s something about Pera’s clipped tones and yawnsome drawl that gets our eyelids shuttering - think Fr Stone if he was from Buffalo, New York.
Pera was in Ireland a couple of months ago for a standup show and since released a special edition of his latest podcast, Drifting Off. It’s “an evening comedy podcast” from Pera and composer Ryan Dann.
The blurb promises: “With low-key jokes, immersive soundscapes, and relaxing phone conversations, Joe's narration and Ryan's sound design will help you unwind and perhaps even fall asleep.”
New episodes of the podcast are released on the first Sunday of every month - the bio adds: “Sorry, it's not more often but this is the fastest we can do thoughtful, quality work.”
It only started this year, with a fifth episode released this month, but if it does its job right, it should take you a few listens to get through their 15-25-minute runtime.
The Irish episode is lovely, with a gorgeous score by guest composer Julianna Barwick and a chat with Dr Art Hughes, and the patter of rain, of course, underpinning the episode. Hughes is a professor of Irish language and culture and has been working on a language almanac of Ireland and surrounding islands for the past number of years. It’s a fascinating chat in itself.
Elsewhere Pera visits St Stephen’s Green - it lives up to its name; “very green”, says Pera - ponders on Irish and British people’s obsession with Pret-a-Manger, and takes a three-hour trip to the Cliffs of Moher, where the “wind and rain are like none I’ve ever experienced”.
Pera also has a Patreon you can subscribe to for eight-hour episodes. If it’s all as nice as ‘An Audio Tour of Ireland’, it’s worth it.
If you’re still thinking about last week’s Succession finale, its stars, from both in front of and behind the camera, have been doing the rounds. Jeremy Strong and Alexander Skarsgard and executive producer/director Mark Mylod are on the official HBO’s Succession podcast.
Series creator Jesse Armstrong is on our favourite TV/culture podcast The Watch. WTF with Marc Maron also had a great episode with J Smith-Cameron - Gerri - on April 24. The show might be over, but hopefully we’ll be hearing from its stars for a long time to come.
