On a long drive, things can get really monotonous, which makes it hard to focus on the road. Maybe listen to music, audiobooks, or podcasts to keep you alert. One of the great things about podcasts is how creative many of them are, using sound effects and music to completely immerse you in the story. Here are three narrative podcasts that use soundscapes to make you feel like you are really within their worlds.
Dreamboy
Dreamboy tells a story with touches of horror, fantasy, surreality, and romance. Two original albums with music from the show are available for purchase. It uses a first-person narrator, mood and background music, in-world music, and sound effects to keep you within the story and completely on the edge of your driver’s seat the whole time. Do keep in mind, this podcast uses explicit language and has adult themes, so only listen if you don’t have kids in the car.
Gaslight
Gaslight uses voice actors and heavy sound production to not only immerse you in its world but to give you an uncomfortable and claustrophobic feeling. It creates a mood much like an indie filmmaker might create onscreen. It also features famous actress Chloë Grace Moretz in the role of its titular character. If you want a podcast that you can binge entirely on one drive, then this is a great choice.
It Makes a Sound
It Makes a Sound is a fictional podcast within a real podcast. It follows a woman who comes back to her childhood home to care for her mother, where she discovers remnants of a boy she remembers as a brilliant musician. With her mother and a ten-year-old she babysits in tow, she searches for his lost music, documenting it in her own fictional podcast. In the real podcast, we hear all of the background noise, her inner thoughts, and her “real life” that don’t make it into her podcast. Like Dreamboy, there is a separate album of music available which “belongs” to the lost musician. The podcast starts out a little slow but picks up as it goes on.
