I love good instrumentals, especially for late night listening when I’m not in the mood for jazz. I prefer music from the heavier end of the spectrum but anything’s cool. Some songs I’ve selected so far: Metallica - Orion Agent Orange - Miserlou Fugazi - Sweet and Low Funkadelic - Maggot Brain Iron Maiden - Genghis Khan Ministry - Corrosion Red Hot Chili Peppers - Pretty Little Ditty
I can’t decide what to select from Don Caballero, Mogwai, Russian Circles, Battles but I feel they each need to be on the list. So any recommendations for them would be great too.
Hideaway (really Stepping Out, also on the Blues Breakers album) also appears at excessive length on Live Cream Vol… 2.
The first Santana album has lots of instrumentals.
Most of Mike Oldfield’s best stuff counts, including
Tubular Bells, TB2 and most of TB3.
Ommadawn
Hergest Ridge
Almost all of Incantations
Platinum - first four tracks.
QE2
Most of Five Miles Out
The Songs of Distant Earth (based on the Arthur C. Clarke book)
and the amazing Amarok.
Variety’s the spice of life, heavy’s just the end of the spectrum I prefer. I’m not familiar with Becks Bolero but, damn, that’s some kind of lineup! It goes to the top of my itunes shopping list based on that alone.
I strongly recommend John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers feat. Peter Green on guitar and their instrumental The Supernatural (aka The Super-Natural) if you like Santana-type lead work (Santana worships Peter Green). Brilliant.
Moby Dick by Zeppelin
Hocus Pocus by Focus
Anything from the Zappa albums “Guitar,” “Shut Up and Play Your Guitar,” and “Shut Up and Play Your Guitar Some More.”
Check out the band Man… Or Astro-Man
Do you like wheedley-whee guitar playing? There’s a world of Vai and Satch waiting to please you if you do. Dream Theater have some great ones too (Dance of eternity, Hell’s kitchen and Erotomania are musts).
Otherwise…
Futterman’s rule - Beastie Boys
Vox stellarum by Arch Enemy
The number song - DJ Shadow
Lastly I’ll suggest Textures by Cynic. If you like jazz and metal I fail to see how this will not beckon your ears over and over and over and over…
A Silver Mount Zion - “Sit in the Middle of Three Galloping Dogs”
Buckethead - “Binge and Grab”, “Want Some Slaw?”
Dungen - “Det Du Tanker Idag Ar Du Imorn”, “Lejonet & Kulan”
Explosions In The Sky - “Welcome, Ghosts”
Electrelane - “Film Music”, “Gabriel”
Faith No More - “Woodpecker From Mars”
Incubus - ‘2nd and 4th Movements of the Odyssey’(off of Halo2 soundtrack)
Let’s Go Bowling - “Grover’s Reprise”
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Quintet - “Spookrijden Op Het Fietspad”
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From a slightly more hiphop/jazzy angle, but still instrumentals…
Avalanches, The - “Electricity”, “Since I Left You”
Amon Tobin - “Nightlife”, “Sordid”
Blockhead - “Insomniac Olympics”
Free the Robots - “Jazzhole”, “Yoga Fire”
Madlib - “Movie Finale”
Nujabes - “Horn in the Middle”
Sebutones - “Whiteys on the Moon”
Stereolab w/Nurse With Wound - “Simple Headphone Mind”
…also maybe try Sole and the Skyrider Band; underground hiphop + post-rock, live instrumental backing
