If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time during the holidays on the road. My own routine for the last 14 years has been a 9 hour highway carve from Brooklyn to the snow belt of Ontario followed by bounces between shops, restaurants and relatives’ houses all within the urban sprawl known as the GTA (greater Toronto area). The soundscape that wraps our days can be sheer cacophony — chart-topping pop, elevator indie/folk, kid’s songs, numbing club bangers, holiday classics and the unbearable lightness of Buble…

But there are alternatives to lean your ears on, afforded in those rare moments of quietude. These moments come in different shapes — a 10 minute run to the grocery store or a few disconnected hours in flight. For me, it’s usually behind the wheel on that first leg, burning rubber as daylight fades to black and everyone else in the car is asleep, leaving nothing but the road, the horizon, and the space between to contemplate. It’s valuable currency, this sliver of time, and it demands a proper soundtrack.

Here are a few favorites that have been on dial throughout 2014 to fill that space between. I’ve included YouTube or Soundcloud links and live performances of each song where possible. If you use Spotify, you can get straight to the playlist titled Space Between.

1. “Seasons (Waiting On You) reinterpreted by BADBADNOTGOOD” by Future Islands

A recent favorite has been BADBADNOTGOOD’s reinterpreation of “Seasons (Waiting on You)” by Future Islands. The Toronto-based trio slices the pace from the original down to a slow hip bender and dresses the song in a dollop of 70s retro soul rock, giving lead singer Samuel T. Herring’s vocals the proper space and weight they deserve.

Future Islands and Samuel T. Herring also undoubtedly dropped the best single song live performance of the year. I want to rewrite the memory of every wedding dancefloor I’ve been on with Samuel T. Herring in the center. What he sells, I buy. Simple as that. Passion incarnate:

2. “Disappearing” by The War on Drugs

Critical acclaim in 2014 fell often in the direction of Adam Granduciel and The War On Drugs’ fourth studio album. Labeled by Pitchfork as the band’s “most lustrous, intricately detailed, and beautifully rendered record to date,” Lost In The Dream features a number of lush, well paced songs that recall the late 80s albums of artists like Springsteen, Matthew Dear, and Tom Petty.

But it’s a wandering track in the middle of the album, “Disappearing,” that digs deepest. Stuart Berman of Pitchfork compared “Disappearing” to “the synth-powered rhythm track of Tears for Fears’ “Pale Shelter” on a codeine drip.” Meandering but decisive guitar riffs, straight ahead snare hits, and layered strings are all dipped in reverb and woven onto an endless ambient canvas fit for any stretch between rest stops.

The band’s live performance of “Disappearing” on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic show in April of 2014 was also on point:

3. “Johnny and Mary (feat Bryan Ferry)” by Todd Terje

Fjords, glacial terrain, northern lights. Precipitous, breathtaking beauty — I saw none of it during my 48 hours DJing in Oslo back in 2003. But what I did get a taste of was the attractive, strange disco undercurrent that courses through Norwegian producers, DJs, and their fans — seminal artists today like Hans-Peter Lindstrom, Prins Thomas, Rune Lindbaek — and a lesser known producer at the time named Todd Terje. Known mostly as a disco edit maven, Terje dropped one of the gems of 2014 with his full length debut It’s Album Time. Nothing paints the cosmic memory-scape better than the collaboration with legendary singer Bryan Ferry:

This live version of “Johnny and Mary” from the Øya Festival this past year speaks for itself:

4. “Beth/Rest (Rare Book Room Version)” by Bon Iver

In a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone, Bon Iver’s frontman Justin Vernon said of “Beth/Rest,” “I’m most proud of that song…it’s definitely the part where you pick up your joint and re-light it.” He was referring to the album version of the song, which is expertly laden with synth stabs, horns and modulated layers of Vernon’s falsetto. But it’s the stripped down B side released on the EP that stirs. Recorded at the Rare Book Room studios in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this version features Vernon exploring the full range of his vocals, stepping through the lyrics in three different octaves while patiently unfolding the sounds of the Steinway piano.

Bon Iver performed a similar acoustic version of “Beth/Rest” at London’s AIR studios in 2012:

5. “The Big Ship” by Brian Eno

The standard for instrumental lyricism, Brian Eno could supply enough music to paint all the walls of self-reflection. Another Green World, Eno’s third studio album from 1975, is widely considered the pivot point of his discography and it marks the beginnings of the ambient, instrumental exploration that he’s most known for. “The Big Ship” features Eno layering multiple synthesizers and rhythm boxes together into a painting of sound. It fades in and out with every layer exposed, leaving the listener to feel as if they’ve just been dropped into the credits of a film.

6. “Aisatsana” by Aphex Twin

2014's Syro was a quiet release considering it was the first full length LP in over a decade from Aphex Twin. The album is replete with precise, melodic beats we’ve come to expect from the selective noisemaker, but it’s the final piece, “Aisatsana,” that Pitchfork called the album’s “most extreme moment.” The minimal, sparse piano notes and ambient backdrop breathe so widely, they have the effect of accenting whatever soundscape you’re enveloped in when you hear it. The openness of the melody ensures each new listen will be different than the last. Instant classic.

Here is rare footage of a live performance of “Aisatsana”:

7. “Cirrus” by Bonobo

Nothing evokes the holidays quite like the sound of ringing bells. I’ll gladly skip them in holiday carols unless it’s Simon Green aka Bonobo on the corner doing a live rendition of “Cirrus.” First released in 2013 on Gilles Peterson’s BBC radio show, “Cirrus” is a straight ahead, deep, driving, expansive and melodic house number, welcome on any list:

Bonobo performed a brow-bending version of “Cirrus” at Glastonbury this past year with plenty of synths, live drums and percussion, but alas, no live bells: