Atmospheric (or just easy to get lost in) records

It is my dream to someday have a record room that looks out over an expansive, beautiful view like this:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6066/6053156205_9c7020df81_o.jpg

(that is the actual view from an ice cream shop I love to visit)

Does anyone have any good suggestions for records that go well with this kind of thing? Examples include folk or blues like Cast King, John Fahey, the song "Put it on the Glass" by Space needle, more experimental Calexico tracks, etc. Basically any really introspective, gorgeous, preferably acoustic music that goes really well with peaceful silence.

tbh music for airports? i really really think it's good.

Arica -S/T or better Heaven, if you don't have these, rush out and find both soon.

what about hamza el din?

Yeah I never really spent any time with music for airports, I really should.

off the top of head, any of the last three Robert Haigh cds, most of Andrew Chalk's oeuvre, the Metal Mountains lp, Erik Satie's piano works (preferably interpreted by Reinbert De Leeuw), Harold Budd, Roedelius...

Popol Vuh, obvs

ALL OF THEM

Wow Arica records aren't cheap!

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20120111/220930368449.jpg

But they are worth it!!

well not all of them, but will vouch for whatever's available through agape-agape

oh right popol vuh!

what about LIVE/DEAD?

Hmm maybe too jammy.

with that landscape in mind Hosianna Mantra or even the fake Popol Vuh record Yoga.

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/5111aa4d65fc3c51d507f7ef1b41ed97/408332.jpg

and don't forget On Land.

Listening to some of these on youtube and while they sound fantastic, I had less of a world/new age vibe in mind, more of an american folk kind of base, prime classical performances with a rural tinge to them, or anything in between. I don't know where to start looking for artists like John Fahey of his era that focus more on guitar tone and chord movements, or spare blues that are more haunting.

Though speaking of world music I am a sucker for traditional music from the far east!

you know Robbie Basho right?

robbie basho
peter lang
george cromarty
mark lang
suni mcgrath

that numero gtr soli comp is pretty good

lil more abstract on that tip is the WOODEN GUITAR comp on locust

Oh no I hadn't heard any Robbie Basho, (listening) reminds me of James Blackshaw.

oh man, VISIONS OF THE COUNTRY is my favorite -- how was that not my #1 recommendation given the first post

maybe even Emmanuelle Parrenin, Mary Rhoads or Veronique Chalot for beautiful rural folkiness

how about stormcock?

(the roy harper rec that is)

If I didn't know you hadn't heard of Robbie Basho, he's your Man, everything, esp. the 2 volumes of The Falconer's Arm!

Wow the guitar part on "Blue Crystal Fire" is genius.

oh man that song is special

Thats like the exact thing I'm always trying to make a guitar do, compositionally.

song of the stallion is my other favorite, but you can't really lose -- he goes from sparse acoustic raga-y blues to lusher-sounding songs/talking pieces.

Musically, Visions of the Country is a version of exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

Since "Stormcock" was mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2bdLAVHbQU&feature=related

I thought of another that hits the spot in a less rural way: Bibio - Fi

song of the stallion doesn't appear to be on youtube :(

hey Even email me at lolvalst✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧ and I'll send you my mediafire links of a few rare folk records I ripped. I think you'll like them.

woah why did that happen?

lolvalstein at gmail is my email address

Ha OK great, thanks! I really appreciate it. I'll reach out to you tomorrow morning.

Thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions so far everyone.

which, of all of these folk/guitar recommendations, are instrumental?

Mountains - Sewn
http://open.spotify.com/album/18pKOXGuNdWxc7T3mdd4jF

Rameses III - I Could Not Love You More
http://open.spotify.com/album/2cCL44jj1J9yIIBQ7rCsjr

Damn I need to get spotify.

what about Sandy Bull?

most of the best basho records are split between vocal & instrumental stuff. suni mcgrath's records are all instrumental, sandy bull's are mostly instrumental (early ones are all instro), pretty sure cromarty & the lang brothers are all instro. kottke's 6 & 12 string guitar record is great too of course.

not really folky or rural but i have been listening to this record a bit lately:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECov3VX2YTU

and steve gunn has some really great extended guitar jammage, electric & acoustic. some of his records have singing.

harry taussig's recently (2009? 2008?) reissued "fate is only once"is a great instrumental guitar record in the fahey style. kind of split between blues & ragtime influenced stuff and "more serious compositions" on the other side..

scott key's 'this forest & the sea' is like half instrumental & half sung... i like the sung stuff on it a lot tho.

http://byrds.tistory.com/378

i find it really easy to get lost inside the farm band's s/t double LP! it's kinda rural rock with dead-style psych excursions. definitely have moments where i become transfixed and like "wtf IS THIS?"

then i remember..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9htQS_j8r8

thanks ian! yep i love Sandy Bull; will investigate the others. really like that Occult Concert above. is it all like that?

Wow Ian, I figured you'd deliver! Will report back

Man Ian I've heard none of the music you recommended.

NONE OF IT? not even sandy bull!?

I've heard a little Sandy Bull, would like to find that Farm Band, I've heard of it but not actually heard it.

nerve pylon: yeah, that record is all like that. i think he has a few other records of guitar and maybe one of keyboards?? weird guy. the record is for meditation and weird occult stuff. kinda silly but fun.

jacob, i found my farm band cheap in tennessee--they were based kinda between nashville & knoxville iirc, so if yer ever in that area..

idk maybe this is tangential to what yer looking for, also crossing over with the Takoma obscurities thread, but the Mike Auldridge records and the Tut Taylor records are great dobro, often with some neato avant-bluegrass backing.. maybe toooo rural and not dreamy enuff?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LGt2N5L4JA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QmEV02oE9I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kQWrP7IWz8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa2zQAjlugo

Dreamy isn't a requirement, I meant atmospheric in the sense that it creates one that is compatible with that scene I set. I mean cast king is pretty straight forward, but I like bittersweet, breezy, spare arrangements, and often old folk and blues records don't feel as spatial, they're almost pop compared to a track like "hot rail" by calexico as an extreme or a typical fahey number.

Paris Texas soundtrack by Ry Cooder - my favorite thing of his.

LOVE that record.

evan, are you a fan of Loren Mazzacane Connors? I rate much of his work very highly.

I never listened! I'll give ry a try too. What do you think of early Utah Phillips?

I mean I know ry cooder I just wouldn't have thought of him in this situation

Evan did you get my email and were you able to download any of the files?

I did get the email! But I am on a trip so I havent been able to open the files. Thanks again!

http://e.imagehost.org/0826/Jim_O_rourke_Bad_timing-1997.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl-Dexcd-eQ

mood music caveat: one of the songs on that record has a kind of silly mariachi horns bit that changes the atmosphere up & if you forget it's going to happen it usually makes you giggle. Playing now, a fine Saturday AM record. no view to speak of here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oISucGq5dsk

Good call on Jim O'Rourke! I do really like that album but I haven't listened to it in at least 4 years...

Ugh why is there no vinyl version of that Roy Montgomery??

good call on V Astley scott

and I keep coming back to Music For Airports after almost 30 years.

other records I have gotten lost in for extended periods (more in the electronic/drone vein here):

David Jackman - Sol Mara
Gas - Koenigsforst and Pop albums
Spacemen 3 - Dreamweapon
Zoviet France - Shouting At The Ground
Nurse With Wound - Soliloquy For Lilith
Nocturnal Emissions - Spiritflesh

sensations fix - fragments of light (1974)
tangerine dream - firestarter OST (1984)
relatively clean riverst - s/t (1975)
steve hillage - fish rising (1975)
dom - edge of time (1972)
ashra - correlations (1979)
phil keaggy - the master and the musician (1978)
linda perhacs - parallelograms (1970)
emeralds - the overlook (2009)
cocteau twins - victorialand (1986)
mirroring (grouper/tiny vipers collab) - foreign body (2012)
earthstar - atomkraft, nein danke (1981)

*rivers

robert ashley - private parts!!!!!!

Once I get back home I have some catching up to do on all of this!

the two recent albums by Earth

Of all those recently listed, I have Victorialand. I have to be in the right mood for that record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GpEr0yzof0

Eyvind Kang and the Neti Neti Band "Live Low to the Earth in the Iron Age" usually takes me there.

But I am pretty sure that is only on cd.

yeah (also maybe oop), but I agree that it is a towering achievement and a great record.

I love some Bardo Pond, some is too post-rocky. I'll come around.

Ian, nobody will tell me, is El Capitan by Utah Phillips a good record??

i'm not the hugest utah phillips fan. that one's on philo right? if yer into folk-revival with a western theme then go for it! those records certainly aren't bad things to listen to.

Yeah it's on philo. There is a sealed copy I can grab for $15 but it's really hard to get a good sampling of the songs anywhere. I saw you had heard it.

$15 seems high in my opinion. most things on phlo can be found in the $1-5 range with a little luck..

i just checked and i don't have a copy anymore, or else i'd sent it to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or7EZYAu0ms&feature=related

^^ classic cheapo philo records recording artist!

Ok, I'll pass on it then. The owner of my store gets a little overly hopeful about the potential cost of a record if he doesn't see thorough evidence that it isn't going to sell for the price he is dreaming of. He thinks he'll get $50 for the 12" folkways issue (1964) of Dust Bowl Ballads just because it went for that in 2008, despite some recent sales with only slightly less mint copies completing for 30.

Thats a great song!

mary mccaslin is the best. pretty sure it was skot who started a thread on her on ILM? or mentioned her on ilm.