The Midnight
Where the Future Meets the Past Meets this Exact Moment
I move slowly in the haze of people pulsing like the sun
Under glowing eyes of neon skies, spinning in slow motion
Diving deep in the heart
Floating in the blue
And the ocean has arms
Let it carry me to you
-Love is an Ocean, by The Midnight
This past year, I discovered a band that instantly became one of the most exciting musical finds I’ve had in a long while. The first time I heard The Midnight, I was swept into a soundscape where the past, present, and future collapsed into one luminous, electric, dreamy vision. While rooted in what’s often called “synthwave” and retro ’80s tones—their sound isn’t mere nostalgia, it’s something more profound. They bridge the beautiful qualities of a bygone musical era—set against a time marked by more cultural repression and less emotional sophistication—with the wisdom of today, both sonically and psychologically. In doing so, they create not just music, but, at least for me, an unexpected but wholly welcome space to reprocess that era for myself and likely others who lived through that time and still carry a few scars.
As someone who came of age in the '80s, The Midnight’s music instantly transports me back to that decade's distinctive vibe: the neon glow, the longing, the electric feeling of possibility in the air. Yet simultaneously, it's thoroughly modern. Their electronic sound is as cutting-edge as anything in that space today, while also carrying the spirit of that time.
What moves me most is how alive their music feels. It pulses with heart, soul, intellectual creativity, and offers plenty of pure fun. I really appreciate how it can be simultaneously playful and philosophical—like a digital albatross carrying me back to my youth, but with an emotionally mature presence that belongs firmly in the present. While a lot of the synth heavy '80s songs of this ilk didn’t often carry much emotional or poetic heft, The Midnight's offerings carry far more complexity thanks to primary lyricist Tyler Lyle's emotional and philosophical depth.
The Art of Retroactive Healing
For me, listening to The Midnight is like opening a time capsule to my childhood soundtrack, but instead of just fondly remembering a time gone by, there's a bit of a healing force that nourishes me for this stage of my life. Their songs reimagine some of the best parts of the '80s, with the depth and wisdom of the modern world and contemporary psychological evolution. Back then, this kind of pop music rarely held the kind of poetic introspection that anchors their work. The Midnight marries that old-school sound with modern reflections on love, loss, depression, and hope (and again, there is plenty of material that aims just to be playful).
What has been so profound for me, as someone who lived through this era and resonated with its sound, is the way that The Midnight has offered me a kind of retroactive rekindling of that time’s spirit. Some of the traumas I experienced back then stunted my ability to fully embrace the joyful buoyancy of the music. Diving into their catalog of music brings me back to the essence of that time of my life, but through wiser ears and a more grounded mind. It allows me not only to re-feel the joy I once missed to varying degrees, but also to open more deeply into the tenderness of that time. I think many of us can relate to the way music can reach into hidden places and shift us. I felt that kind of magic through music more often when I was younger, so it’s a gift to encounter it again so potently as an adult.
We have mostly wasted time
Half-asleep and have-to-buy
Waiting for the faintest lie
And waiting for these wounds to heal
No, we're never as lost or as found as we think we are
— Lost & Found
Even though their music is electronic, it doesn't feel cold. It's sultry and effervescent, yet also earthy and grounded. The soundscape can float me into galaxies while also digging into something eternal.
Their lyrics can strike at the deepest yearnings of the human heart. Take “Digital Dreams,” where the self is imagined as a machine, unable to fully feel—the production makes that metaphor visceral. You don’t just hear it, you feel it.
Where do you go in the darkness
When you're alone in your bed
How do you dream
When you're just a machine
Imagining colors you can't see
If we're all connected
Why can't we seem to get along
Why does every road I take to leave just bring me home
And why does the journey feel so lonely
It's been so long
Will these questions matter when we're gone
—Digital Dreams
The band is made up of two members: Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle. Tyler, the lead vocalist and lyricist, has a rich, warm voice that often seems to float effortlessly across their tracks. It fits perfectly for what they are doing. Tim very occasionally takes the lead on vocals as well (two songs)—and he’s so good at it that I’m surprised he hasn’t done more. Together, they share songwriting duties, with Tim layering in masterful and transformative production.
It’s one thing to use retro sounds—plenty of producers are doing that right now—but it’s another to make them feel so alive and contemporary, as though they belong exactly in this moment. That’s what The Midnight does. Strong melodies, intricate production, layered lyrics—it feels like the ’80s reborn for today, yet somehow also not the ’80s at all.
For me, this is more than music. It feels like a calling. The Midnight is creating something that points toward the eternal, something expansive and luminous that I can't quite name. I just know it's beautiful and transports me. And I know it's what the world needs more of—art that doesn't just entertain but transforms, that doesn't just recall the past but helps redeem it. At least it does for me.
In a time when so much feels fractured, The Midnight offers integration: of past and present, of electronic precision and human warmth, of nostalgic longing and mature wisdom. Their music reminds us that “we're never as lost or as found as we think we are”—and sometimes, that's exactly what we need to hear.
FAVORITES PLAYLIST:
Whole Playlists on Spotify and Apple Music
Lost Boy - Apple Music - Spotify
Love is An Ocean - Apple Music - Spotify
Sunset - Apple Music - Spotify
Synthetic - Apple Music - Spotify
Crystalline - Apple Music - Spotify
Gloria - Apple Music - Spotify
Comet - Apple Music - Spotify
Shadows - Apple Music - Spotify
Digital Dreams - Apple Music - Spotify
America 2 - Apple Music - Spotify
Matthew Albracht’s Substack writings explore how we heal—from the inside out and the bottom up—personally, culturally, politically—with a particular focus on the intersections between them all. Weaving together politics, psychology, and personal growth, grounded in systems thinking and trauma-awareness.
He is the former Executive Director and a Board Member of The Peace Alliance (www.peacealliance.org), a U.S. based NGO which advocates for domestic and international peacebuilding priorities. His writings have appeared on CNN, Salon, HuffPost and other outlets.