Music in the Sauna

The Best Sauna Music

My buddy Danny Sigelman’s post on sauna music motivated me to add on. His big three are: The Hold Steady, Fela Kuti, The Clash. I’d like to add the following to his great sauna music list:

1. Wilco
2. My Morning Jacket
3. Burning Spear

The Commonality of These Three Artists

All three have an uncanny ability to build a rhythm, not often fast, yet methodical and pleasant (Company In My Back- Wilco, Lay Low-MMJ, Mistress Music- BS) then have bridges and breaks, then return to the rhythm.. all analogous to rounds in a sauna. Consistency of rhythm (heat) with breaks and bridges (rounds).

A Great Sauna Music Mix- Shuffle These 3 Albums

• Burning Spear – Live in Paris ’88
• My Morning Jacket – Z
• Wilco – Kicking Television

These three lps all capture the value of great rhythms, complemented by bridges and breaks. All three are recorded live and in the pinnacles of each band’s career. The sounds of each are crisp and solid, and the cheering of fans after one track mixes wonderfully with whichever track comes next in your 3 lp shuffle.

It’s a great feeling how, in your little sauna, you can bring in recorded moments of wonderfully live music, and as the fans cheer, it’s like a cold water plunge after 20 minutes in 180 degree sauna music heat. 3.5 hours of great sauna music. Check it out!

Readers’ Suggestions

Feel free to leave a comment with your suggestion and we’ll keep the music playing.

• Junip, Fields (2010), Sweden.
• Thievery Corporation, The Richest Man in Babylon (2003), Washington, DC.
• Toumani Diabati, Ali Farke Toure, In the Heart of the Moon (2005), Mali.
• Chico Mann, Analogue Drift (2009), Brooklyn, NY.
• Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Cuba.
• Daniel Lanois, Shine (2008), Canada.

Try the Sauna Music Shuffle

Whilst enjoying sauna, many enjoy solitude. Perhaps interrupted by intermittent soft conversation, oftentimes just one or two words. Once, in Scandinavia, I went an entire sauna round, the only word spoken was “ya” in response to another pointing at the sauna rocks with the water ladle.

For many of Italian descent, this can be maddening. Music, however, seems to be striking positive vibrations in sauna. Especially the Friday Happy Hour sauna. A good practice may be to encourage sauna guests to submit an album of their choice to be part of a sauna party playlist. Thanks to Rhapsody, Spotify, and the ease of music streaming services, a few albums can be added to a sauna playlist, then shuffled, creating an eclectic, collaborative, fresh musical experience.

Do People Who Enjoy Sauna Also Share an Interest in Similar Music?

4/26/2014

This concept was re-pondered between sauna rounds during a recent Happy Hour sauna whilst streaming:

• Bonobo. British ambient. Female vocal and instrumental inter twinings.
• Tinariwan: Sahara Desert Blues emanating with a trance from the hot sands of northern Mali.
• Fela Kuti: a sauna classic. Sisu sonically brought forth through Fela’s power and his 23 member Egypt 80 band members.

There’s Argentina’s Juana Molina and Federico Aubele, who collaborated with Saunatimes mainstay Thievery Corporation. There’s a nod to Scandinavia with Junip and some lighter doses of Bjork and Sigur Ros.

There’s Brazilian Gilberto Gil who stands on his own, surrounded by the friggin’ awesome Milton Nascimento and Jorge Ben. There’s always room for reggae, most notably Lee “Scratch” Perry, dub lps. from King Tubby, Sly & Robbie, Agustus Pablo and artists influenced by this genre like Gorillaz, The Orb, and Daniel Lanois who produced seminal albums by Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson,U2, Dylan, Peter Gabriel, and others.

There’s Americana like Bon Iver, Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket’s acoustic sets, plus The War on Drugs and spin off Kurt Vile. And on a cold rainy sauna day in Ireland, Luka Bloom, Waterboys, and Van Morrison, are chill out partners between rounds in the garden all misty wet with rain.

And there’s more. Just as how we can customize our hot room temperatures and chill out times, with our own sauna we can customize our sauna music. Sweet tides.