Everyone loves lyrics. Whether they’re light-hearted and playful, soul-gripping and gut-wrenching, or abstract and avant garde, we all love to sing along, relate certain verses to our personal lives, or just be taken away by another person’s story.
On the other hand, hearing a great instrumental track is an entirely different experience. Without having words to identify with, your brain is free to let the music create an image in your mind. The interpretation is more so up to you than if you had someone defining it with their own words. Having this blank canvas allows your mind to wander, providing you with a perfect experience to express your own creativity.
While this is a great idea in concept, putting together a great playlist of instrumental artists is extremely difficult. We could easily outline ten different genres from classical, to jazz, to ambient electronic. Also, do vocal samples count? What about humming? What about bands that sometimes sing, and sometimes do instrumental tracks? We went back and forth on how we should create this, and finally decided to just throw together some of our personal favorites along with a few other suggestions from close friends, Bruke at Spread Label, James at Rising Digital, and the rest of the TMN staff.
Enjoy.
AMBIENT/ATMOSPHERIC/EXPERIMENTAL
’Apparat / Goodbye (Instrumental)’
’J.R Alexander – Im Glad’
’Ulrich Schnauss – A Long Way To Fall’
’Olafur Arnalds – Brotsjór’
’Olafur Arnalds – Lynns Theme’
’The American Dollar – A Few Words’
’The American Dollar – Age Of Wonder’
’General Fuzz – Mellow drama’
’Aphex Twin – Avril 14th’
’Aphex Twin – Jynweythek Ylow’
’Do Make Say Think – Greed Waltz’
’Do Make Say Think – Chinatown’
’Hammock – Ten Thousand Years Wont Save Your Life’
’Hammock – Tape Recorder’
’Message to Bears – Farewell, Stars’
’Message to Bears – Wake Me’
POST ROCK
’Codes in the Clouds – You And I Change Like Seasons’
’Codes in the Clouds – Look Back, Look Up’
’Broken Social Scene – Guilty Cubicles’
’Broken Social Scene – Love And Mathematics’
’El Ten Eleven – Lullaby’
’El Ten Eleven – Yellow Bridges (Music Video Edit)’
’This Will Destroy You – A Three
Legged Workhorse’
’This Will Destroy You – The Mighty Rio Grande’
’Tristeza – Balabaristas’
’Mogwai – Friend of the Night’
’Mogwai – Emergency Trap’
’Explosions in the Sky – Trembling Hands’
’Saxon Shore – Amber, Ember, Glow’
’Saxon Shore – The Revolution Will Be Streaming’
’Red Sparrowes – Truths Arise’
’Red Sparrowes – Giving Birth To Imagined Saviors’
’Russian Circles – Atackla’
’Russian Circles – Philos’
DANCY/GROOVY/POP
’Holy Fuck – Latin America’
’royksopp – eple (album version with intro)’
’Little People – Eminence Grise’
’Little People – Aldgate Patterns’
’Emancipator – Black lLake’
’Emancipator – Nevergreen’
’Drums and Tuba – The Mummy’
