Joe Pera sounds like somebody’s slow-talking, sweet-hearted grandfather philosophising about the good old days while rocking by the fire. Except he’s a 35-year-old American comedian made famous by a cartoon he developed as part of the Adult Swim broadcasts and he’s talking about the video game Red Dead Redemption, or reading a Wikipedia page about drownproofing. So why does his new podcast, Drifting Off with Joe Pera, make for such addictive, soporific listening?
Here’s the premise: Pera chooses a subject, from soup to Ireland to his answering machine, on which to meander, giving slow and gravelly voice to each reverie against a soundscape provided by a new musician on every episode. There’s also often a special guest introduced via phone call, usually a fellow comedian who chews the cud with Pera for a spell. Hooked yet? Unlikely, because I’m not quite getting to the wonder of Drifting Off with Joe Pera.
I could try to explain it with the Ireland episode, in which Pera tells us of the two major takeaways from his recent trip here. The first is the rain, which makes its sonic appearance in the episode like a quiet patter on a distant windowpane, and does its job pelting Americans on the Cliffs of Moher. The second is the fact that at the time of Pera’s visit, Joe Biden, the US president, was also in Ireland. “I walked by some newspapers and the front page would read ‘Welcome home, Cousin Joe,’” says Pera. “And I would say ‘Thanks! Hahahahaha.’ It kind of gets lonely when travelling alone.”
The episode also introduces us to the Irish-language scholar Dr Art Hughes and his myriad recordings of native speakers, as well as the Norwegian comedian Daniel Simonsen, who has advice on how to find love in spring. (The key, apparently, is to prioritise money and Instagram likes.) All of this is soundtracked by ethereal electronic loops from Juliana Barwick. It adds up to something simultaneously sweet and kind of soulful and maybe explains his cult following.
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Though there is comedy here, its delivery is so slow and measured that it breaks over you like a wave, so that you barely notice you’re smiling and can’t really understand why you are – as you hear about clockmaking in a layered sonic landscape that’s a little bit ASMR and a little bit guided meditation.
I can tell you that his fantasy of a nighttime drive around town in a cow-free future is incredibly tender, or how compelling I found his video-game idea about the driver of the Phoenix airport shuttle (as read in a Welsh accent by the Irish-American actor Roger Clark), but maybe you just have to listen to it yourself.
Some of the charm may be that, in contrast to the content churn of most of podland, Pera releases new episodes on his own steady schedule, once a month, no more, no less. They’re as long as they need to be – unless you pay via Patreon for the extended version – and as strangely beautiful as they are strangely bonkers. I can also testify that I have personally been found, gob open, mildly drooling and seriously conked, with Joe Pera closing an episode in my headphones. Drifting Off with Joe Pera delivers on its promise.
