If gentle meditations, “rainsong” on rooftops or whispered storytelling aren’t your thing for falling asleep to, a former national news anchor living on Salt Spring has a solution.
“I’m the opposite,” laughed Dallas Kachan, whose new sleep podcast might just be the prescription for what ails people’s busy brains today: pure, structural boredom.
Kachan’s “Deeply Unimportant” podcast series features a growing collection of recordings to combat sleeplessness, repurposing the veteran broadcaster’s gravitas-laden voice into a force to help listeners nod off. Kachan said the deliberately unengaging content functions as a “cognitive anchor,” perfect for that portion of listeners who find their own racing thoughts keep right on racing through other sorts of seemingly relaxing material.
“They don’t need a fairy tale,” said Kachan. “They need a structural metronome for their brain. They need to know that someone is in control so they don’t have to be.”
A sample track, titled “The 1972 International Convention for Safe Containers,” invites listeners to “achieve deep rest in the immutable strength of the standardized box, as we contemplate the steel corrugated wall and the structural laws that govern its construction.”
Structurally boring, indeed.
It’s all quite the pivot; before he was presenting the finer points of acceptable maritime standards to the sleep-deprived, Kachan wrote and anchored hourly newscasts carried live on hundreds of radio stations with Broadcast News, the broadcast division of the Canadian Press national news service. He voiced documentaries and audiobooks, including a 19-hour read of his own bestselling travel and adventure novel about a round-the-world flight in a futuristic airplane.
Away from broadcasting for more than two decades, Kachan said he moved with his family to Salt Spring near the beginning of the pandemic, and found he wanted to do something with his voice again. The market for sleep-related programming had been growing, and he saw a gap.
“There seemed to be nobody else with my sort of deep, authoritative sound and inclination for structure and order,” said Kachan. “There is a segment of the audience — specifically those with ADHD or high-stress careers — who find traditional ‘bedtime stories’ or ‘relaxing rain sounds’ either too juvenile or too repetitive.”
Kachan set up a little recording nook in his home office — no booth, no soundproofing, no engineers, just a boom stand, his three-decade-old favourite instrument microphone, and a voice for the ages.
“I can only record at night, when Harbour Air isn’t flying,” said Kachan. “And when it’s not raining.”
Deeply Unimportant’s first “sedations” include eight-hour readings of technical manuals, municipal codes and administrative data — the 1922 Western Softwood Lumber Grading Rules, NASA’s Man-Systems Integration Standards, a 1954 Singer Sewing Machine Manual — all presented through Kachan’s flat, professional delivery and available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else podcasts are found. For listeners seeking uninterrupted, ad-free “all-night” episodes and other exclusive content, Kachan said a premium feed is available at deeplyunimportant.com.
“For years, my job was to make people lean in,” he said. “Now, my job is to make them drift off.”