A genuine bacchanalia needs the right music, music that evokes a sense of raw desire, truth in flesh, that kind of thing, not superficially bald renderings such as Madonna’s Like a Virgin or at your local electric zoo. Dance party music is often predictable, denying the subtlety of the bacchanalia, the potential for a slow build, heightening the tension, a move to the side, and then incrementally back toward inevitable release.

Some alternate bacchanalia soundtracks to consider:

4. Uah (Mouse on Mars)

Stripped down, dream-like, this music moves between slumber and fever.

3. Supplication (Grateful Dead)

Jazz meets psychedelia, spiraling toward electric understanding..

2. Voodoo Chile (Jimi Hendrix)

Towering worlds climb and collide, fade into the distance, resurrected, flying again, impossibly so.

1. Heavenly Music at Half Speed (Fripp & Eno)

The feeling of a vibrating whole reduced to a devastating note washing over, continuing without end. Something like that.