Noctural Here comes the night time: Music after dark

What was the night-time made for? Snuggling up with a steaming-hot cup of cocoa and watching Newsnight? Getting an awkward vodka-reeking cab back home to stumble through the front door? Ask Alex Turner, and he’ll probably say (if he – err – likes quoting his own lyrics) that the night time was made for saying things that you can’t say tomorrow day. Well, it’s also about listening to things that you wouldn’t in the daytime.

There’s always been a certain romance (sigh) that music and the night-time have shared; a dalliance between the dark vibes of the evening and ethereal, rich sounds to match. Of course, the daytime has brought such goods as listening to Mum’s James Blunt CD in the school runs and having a little jig to the Lauren Laverne show on 6Music. But the night-time is surely a greater influence through a wide-reaching veil of media; and for masking dance moves that would lead to self-induced eye-gouging.