In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Ivy Pochoda’s novel Ecstasy is a dazzling and riveting feminist retelling of Euripides’ The Bacchae.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“[A] defiantly feminist reimagining of Euripides’ The Bacchae . . . Pochoda’s sun-drenched, blood-soaked literary fever dream pits hubris against hedonism, likens religion to rave culture, and explores the transformative power of female rage. Incandescent prose, present-tense narration, and frequent perspective shifts impart urgency, rendering the characters’ passions palpable. It’s a gleefully transgressive tour de force.”
In her own words, here is Ivy Pochoda’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Ecstasy:
Full disclosure—while I was what you all might call a “party person,” EDM was neither my passion nor my calling. So, these songs aren’t exactly what you’d find at the sort of raves described in Ecstasy. (I’ll spare you that.) But these tracks are the background to many of my formative years, my latest nights, my earliest mornings—what I danced to in clubs in NYC and at parties on the beach near Amsterdam, where I lived for most of my twenties. They are what I played before going out at night, when I got home in the morning, or when I prepared a dinner party or cleaned my house. Over two decades of on again / off again misbehavior, these tracks slipped into my subconscious and provided the necessary “research” to write Ecstasy. So here are some tracks to dance to, to come down to—some tracks that might make you itch for those old habits that, like mine, died hard; tracks that will lift you up to that nearly unreachable peak and ease you into a gelatinous chill. Here are some tracks that will hopefully take you where Ecstasy —or rather ecstasy—can and should.
Cerrone:
“Supernature”
If there is one song that IS Ecstasy—that actually inspired the book—it’s this dystopian disco track from 1977 that’s prominently featured in Gaspar Noe’s trippy horror movie Climax. It’s a fucking sinister song whose instrumental edit Noe deploys for maximum effect in a luscious, bacchic fifteen-minute opening dance sequence that leads into a horrific, hallucinatory, and deadly afterparty. When I saw that scene—when I heard this track—I knew exactly what I wanted to write.
Josh Wink:
“Don’t Laugh” & “Higher State of Consciousness”
When I met my best friend Matt, he was a California raver, super plugged into the scene. He introduced me to Josh Wink and we saw him play several times in Boston and New York. These two tracks are the sonic rendering of chasing that ever-ascending high in a dusty warehouse in a derelict corner of a major city until the whole sweaty mess of you meld as one into a cosmic supernova of collective heat, sweat, and love before you’re dropped back down to earth—yet left with the sense that something in your brain is forever changed and you can never go back to how you were before.
Masters At Work:
“Nights Over Egypt” & “To Be in Love”
If I had to pledge allegiance to one genre of EDM, it’s house hands down. I’m from NYC and nothing is more emblematic of the late nineties than super duo “Little” Louie Vega and Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez. Their groundbreaking and surprising four-on-the-floor remixes of disco and soul —everything and everyone from Madonna and the Spice Girls to Michael Jackson and Earth, Wind & Fire—redefined house with jazz and Latin beats, as well as their signature powerful diva vocals. These tracks preach the gospel of love and power while making you groove to some seriously funky disco beats.
Nuyrocian Soul:
“It’s All Right, I Feel It” & “I Am the Black Gold of the Sun”
Oh my god—if it isn’t Kenny “Dope” and “Little” Louie again—this time with, what I’m going to insist, is one of the most sonically important and downright masterful albums of all time. Very groovy and slightly melancholy (arguably better for the come down that the come up)—this album (and especially these tracks) are an aural history of the streets and sounds of New York, a vibrant and super-lush recreation of the city’s music. You will damn well feel it.
Moby:
“Honey”
Love him or hate him, Moby was everywhere—on the radio, on the television, in the clubs. Play took Moby from an electronic music nerd to a popstar overnight. There’s something reverent on all the tracks, something eerie and holy. And of course, something violently commercial and riveting. Honey is emblematic of the album’s peculiar brand of techno-gospel—creepy and infectious.
Fat Boy Slim:
“Praise You”
What needs to be said? You’ve heard it. You probably love it. Or love to hate it. Or maybe you’re sick of it or annoyed that it charted at number one. Regardless, Praise You remains a funky collage of samples and crafty transitions that makes you itch with anticipation, a build-it-up / break-it-down frenzy that is expertly controlled and emotionally manipulative the way the best big beat electronic should be.
Basement Jaxx:
“Red Alert”
True story. This one time in Prague I found myself driving through the city just after midnight with a man named Pavel whom I’d met a few hours earlier. We were trying to trace down his hairdresser so we could have our hair dyed blue. (Didn’t work out.) Next thing, we were in the lobby of an office building. Next thing Basement Jaxx was playing. They played Red Alert. I remember that. I remember Groove Armada played too. That’s about it.
Café Del Mar Volume 6:
Afterlife Dub In Ya Mind (Beach Club Mix)
It just wasn’t a daytime beach party in the late ’90s / early 2000s if there wasn’t some Café Del Mar playing. A bit of weed, some rose, your toes in the sand—a bit of chill, a bit of sun and sand. Never mind, you rarely had any idea who the artists are behind these tracks—or this track. Never mind that you probably didn’t like the music all that much. It was more that you needed it, because all you needed to know that when it’s Café Del Mar, you are damn well going to relax.
Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, and has been a finalist for the the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy has led a creative writing workshop in Skid Row Los Angeles where she helped found Skid Row Zine. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.