Soundscapy-type stuff that is good for working to

really feeling this innervisions 'muting the noise' comp along these lines

helps me get over writer's block more easily than anything else recently in any case

Labradford, ***Eluvium*** especially "Talk amongst the Trees" and "Lambent Material"

Okay well blindingly obvious answer no's 1-3 would be Stars Of The Lid, Growing and Windy & Carl.

Less blindingly obvious would be something by Gareth Hardwick or some of the stuff he puts out on his label.

haha!

Yeah, SOTL and Growing are on the list already- not got any Windy & Carl.

I vaguely know Gareth Hardwick actually so perhaps I will ask him...

I use ambient black/doom metal for exactly this purpose - I work open plan, and find a wall of fuzz essential for heavy drafting sessions. The mood may not be right for you, but you might want to give Velvet Cacoon or Nortt a shot.

As much Stars Of The Lid as you can handle (as already mentioned) plus The Necks, Eno's early ambient albums, Attached by Orbital, Aphex twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol.2, Susumu Yokota's early 90s ambient albums on Leaf.

saddleback

Gianluca Becuzzi & Fabio Orsi

I guess SOTL are ubiquitous in this context!

Okay, Polmo Polpo are kinda nice, the original 2CD 'Isolationism' complilation on Virgin that came out in the mid 90's would work, althogh it might be a bit cold in places. Have you heard Tangerine Dream's Zeit?

It might be worthwhile checking out the Noble label, Kazumasa Hashimoto, Midori Hirano or Cinq are all great (actually probably anything from that label.)

gas

MIRROR

gas, eno, and yokota 2nded
global communication

Hahaha, I can't believe someone mentioned Gareth! Awesome.

The following bunch of stuff is a mix of ambient and just chilled stuff that I've found good to work to, and is also mostly late '90s, as these days I only listen to annoying records: Funfair by Child's View (Nobukazu Takemura) is really lovely, all twee and burbly in its electronics. Foehn is also really good - she was associated with the Bristol lot like FSA and Movietone. Bowery Electric also good for working to, sort of electronic drone.

Labradford seconded (though they could warrant close attention too)

SOTL and Labradford thirded and fourthed. Also check out If Thousands: http://www.ifthousands.com/

Hidden Name by Stephan Mathieu and Janek Schaefer. Beautiful record.

would like to 2nd the praise for that ambient Innervisions cd. super tasty ambient tracks. i prefer this to any Kompakt Ambient disc.

just got the gas boxset, also lately have discovered that Goslings is #1 for reading, working, cleaning of all kinds.

keith fullerton whitman - playthroughs. minimal drone, very relaxing

I like Stafrænn Hákon's ....Skvettir Edik Á Ref for working to, maybe some Thomas Köner too.

and lots of the above of course.

A lot of the stuff onRoom 40

Paul Schutze

Or rather Paul Schütze

chihei hatakayema
tetsu inoue
stars of the lid
grouper
windy & carl
eluvium
steve roach
hammock
amiina
gavin bryars
eno
harold budd
pauline oliveros

where should i start with Growing?

The two Growing albums that came out on Kranky are pretty great.

Very handsome artwork too.

i like listening to some Black Metal, the noisier the better when i'm working. MBV works well too.

The Dead Texan

Craig Richards - Fabric 01

Propulsive but not too banging and intrusive. Many of the tracks have a subtle melody that keeps things interesting. Also, almost anything by Rod Modell / Deepchord. You might just wanna get monged to that tho.

That new Julianna Barwick is perfect for this. Loscil and Emeralds too.

Now I'm onto early Aphex Twin because I needed to up the energy,

What do you work to? Can anyone work to stuff with lyrics/discernible vocals? I can only do this to classic rock stuff I know so well that the vocals are just part of the sound.

I also totally fall into the trap of hearing something and thinking, "THIS is perfect, I want Spotify/Last Fm to play me things that sound exactly like THIS" but then I realize I just need to keep listening to exactly THIS and not trust the lunatic algorithmic logic of the electronic hivemind

https://www.focusatwill.com/music/#player

http://soundcloud.com/etape/t-12

could try the pluie/noir podcasts also, but more of a mixed bag

http://soundcloud.com/pluie-noir/pluie-noir-podcast-002

Love that etape thing, thanks a lot!

there are 2 other mixes on the etape soundcloud, its one of my fav sleeping listens:)

this was excellent early morning working music for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnSyIPHQj2s

aww thanks scott. perfect spreadsheet music

I can only do this to classic rock stuff I know so well that the vocals are just part of the sound.

Yeah I've always found Back in Black to be good when I need to get work done.

Black Moses by Isaac Hayes is a more mellow album that I like for this too.

tortoise TNT always good for passive/active listening.

If you like Julianna Barwick, I recommend Amiina (who play on Barwick's new album), Sigur Ros (whose producer produced Nepenthe) or Rhian Sheehan. A couple other recent albums that work this way for me are Holden's The Inheritors and Daniel Wohl's Corps Exquis. Or maybe take a spin through these playlists and see if anything grabs you (gently): http://rd.io/x/QUPlBzN2oVI/, http://rd.io/x/QUPlBzN2lRY/, http://rd.io/x/QUPlBzMbUGI/.

Also potentially http://rd.io/x/QUPlBzN3yyA/, http://rd.io/x/QUPlBzN6vnA/, http://rd.io/x/QUPlBzN3PcM/ or http://rd.io/x/QUPlBzNiW6Y/. If I feed the artists you specifically mentioned into my similar-artists machine, the top 20 artists you didn't mention are Keith Fullerton Whitman, Ben Frost, Oren Ambarchi, Loscil, Ekkehard Ehlers, Belong, Oval, Lawrence English, Taylor Deupree, Pan•American, Philip Jeck, Chihei Hatakeyama, Akira Rabelais, Mountains, Deaf Center, Colleen, Christopher Bissonnette, Machinefabriek, Marsen Jules, Stephan Mathieu.

(Hah, only just noticed that this thread is from 2008, so probably the original poster isn't going to come evaluate these recommendations. But maybe somebody else will find something they like...)