My Favorite Music

Last updated 29 Oct 2024

Here is a list, as updated as it can be, of music I would recommend to y’all, friends. I’ll split things up by genre, which is probably the easiest way, although my idea of genre for some bands may differ from yours (sometimes mine is a little too expansive at times). I’m trying to make this a little more select, rather than dumping every artist in here like I did previously.

Classical

I like a number of classical artists, but the ones in rotation in my personal collection are the following:

Erik Satie: I heard his suite of Gymnopédies and absolutely fell in love with them, especially the first (“Lent et douleureux”). I used to know how to play that song on the piano, but don’t know that I could any more. I have a small CD of piano music by Satie that is lovely.

Robert Schumann: I heard Schumann’s “Träumerei” (Ger., “dreaming”) on an excellent 10-CD classical compilation when I was a child, and it always stuck with me. The song makes me think of old times, namely pre- or circa-WWI times, for whatever reason. I found a really nice collection of his suite Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) on the Internet Archive, but unfortunately the album isn’t there any more, or I’d post a link. A smaller collection of his music can be found here and easily downloaded.

Gustav Holst: I first heard about Holst in the early 2000s, and his suite The Planets is really very lovely. If you listen closely to “Mars, the Bringer of War,” you’ll see that John Williams seems to have cribbed not a small amount for “The Imperial March” in Star Wars. Also, it’s always fun to hear “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” in strange places like The Venture Bros.

I have a nice 10CD collection of classical music called Dream Melodies. It was actually one of the first sets of CDs I got, back in around 1996. I got rid of the physical discs, but ended up re-buying the collection on Amazon as MP3s (not an Amazon fan, but oh well). I’m not sure how accessible this now is, but you can check it out here?

Comedy

My comedy collection has ebbed and flowed over the years, especially as I’ve become more conscious of what is and is not good comedy. I barely watch or listen to any these days.

Longmont Potion Castle: Albums full of hilarious prank calls. I used to like Crank Yankers back in the day when it was in fashion, but this guy blows them out of the water. Super lo-fi, homebrew-ish, and anarchically gleeful. His name is a shoutout to Longmont, CO, and as far as I know, he’s based somewhere in Colorado. Great stuff.

Dark Ambient

Dark ambient is a rather difficult genre to classify. My understanding of dark ambient is that it consists of harsh, atonal, creepy, horrifying ranges of sounds. However, I tend to throw anything slightly weird or obscurely related to that first definition under this umbrella. Feel free to disagree. My first exposure to dark ambient was in around 2008 or so when I stumbled upon a huge torrent with a ton of music. I had heard about dark ambient via Silent Hill, because the soundtracks to that game, by Akira Yamaoka, should definitely be classified as such. I wanted more, and wow did I find it.

For a time, I used to set up a playlist of dark ambient music as “sleep music” to see if it would influence my dreams. I don’t know that it ever did, but it was fun to try. I found most of the “dark ambient” below on a little-known MP3 blog called MUTANT SOUNDS, which I think is defunct at best these days. Seek it out if you can. Here’s a generous sampling of the “dark ambient” in my collection.

Abandoned Toys, The Witch’s Garden (2007): Creepy little album whose title evokes so many things. Tracks include “Where Red Shadows Slumber,” “Spiraling into the Sun,” and others.

Alan Lamb: Sparse, haunting compositions; notable albums include Primal Image (1995) and Night Passage (1998).

Arecibo, Trans-Plutonian Transmissions (1994): Pseudonym of Lustmord (vid. inf.), and cobbled together from radio telescope recordings. Wonderfully terrifying stuff.

Big Fok, Black Lodge/White Lodge (2013): Nicely-done electronica variations on music from Twin Peaks, one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

Biosphere: Pseudonym of Geir Jenssen, a Norwegian musician whose early recordings included The North Pole by Submarine (another excellent album, with the earlier pseudonym of Bleep). Lovely electronic soundscapes. Highlights include “Phantasm,” which includes a creepy looped sample from the film The Krays: “I had a dream last night… we had the same dream!” Also, “Hyperborea” includes most of the Major Briggs “palazzo” speech from the Twin Peaks season two opener, which is one of my favorite TV monologues.

BLAKMOTH: Chill, yet really catchy electronica, occasionally straying into dark ambient territory. I’ve been slowly collecting albums. Check it out on Bandcamp.

Brendan Perry: He probably belongs more in “rock” or something of the like, but it’s dark and atmospheric enough that I found it akin to “dark ambient.” Perry is also a member of Dead Can Dance, another excellent group. Highlights include “Utopia” and “Wintersun.”

Chaucerian Myth, The Canterbury Tales (2016): Music meant to evoke Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It’s lovely stuff. There’s also a great album based on Troilus and Criseyde (also 2016). Check it out here.

Clara Rockmore, Clara Rockmore’s Lost Theremin Album (2006): Theremin is one of the most eerie instruments I’ve ever heard. Her rendition of Dvorak’s “Humoresque” (rendered as “Humoreske” on the album) is amazing.

Daughter of Eris, Nothing Valued is Here (2020): Really, nice dark ambient, evoking desolate landscapes. Reminds me of why I fell in love with dark ambient in the first place. Bandcamp here.

Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange, Inventions for Radio: Dreams (1965): I can’t recommend this enough to everyone. Derbyshire carefully constructed a delightfully dreadful wall of electronic sound behind the voices of British people talking about their terrifying dreams of all kinds. One especially chilling part is a child talking about dreaming of dying at the bottom of the sea: “The sea is very deep. I go into the sea and then I go right down to the bottom, and there’s some land there. I always die in the land, the land at the bottom of the sea.” Here’s a link for you if you want to listen.

Disparition: He does all the music for the acclaimed podcast Welcome to Night Vale! I’m slowly collecting albums.

Grave Owl, The Solar Crypt (2022): A delightfully gloomy soundtrack to a horror movie that never was, put out by the excellent Library of the Occult record label. Check it out here, and also check out a nice companion piece, Lumarian (2023) by Dream Division.

Isolrubin BK, Crash Injury Trauma (1993): One of the most disturbing albums I’ve ever heard. WYSIWYG. The album is an aural trip through multiple car crashes, with terrifying sounds and sparse narration. Side-project of Brian “Lustmord” Williams and Andrew “SETI” Lagowski. A unique, singular listening experience.

Jean-Michel Jarre: Might be more apt to put him under electronic music, but I find his album Oxygene (1977) unsettlingly lovely. His album Magnetic Fields (1981) is also really nice. Maybe it’s just me, but I first heard his track “Oxygene IV” on Pure Moods back in the late ’90s.

Jeff Greinke: Really lovely, desolate soundscapes from the mid-to-late ’80s. Some of his albums include Cities in Fog (1985), Over Ruins (1985), and Places of Motility (1987).

Library Tapes: Sad, but also exceedingly lovely piano music from Swedish composer David Wenngren. A Summer Beneath the Trees (2008) is excellent, for example.

Lustmord: One of the most prolific dark ambient artists, and one of the original players in the genre. Pseudonym of Brian Williams. He was once a member of the legendary S.P.K. (see below), and has made a great career for himself in sculpting eerie, otherworldly soundscapes. Apparently he’s done field recordings in crypts and caves, and well, listen to his stuff. Heresy (1990) is the first album I heard of his. He has a number of side-projects, for which he uses other monikers (e.g., Isolrubin BK, Terror Against Terror). A lot of his stuff is available on Bandcamp!

Lutz Rahn, Solo Trip (1978): One of my favorite dark ambient albums. Very synthy and moody. Rahn was a member of the ’70s Krautrock group Novalis, and set some time aside to crank out this bizarre little solo album. On the cover, his face is in a terrifying clown mask, and he is seated at an organ, surrounded by audio equipment. Highlights include “Galaxy Taxi” and “September.”

Model 500: This is the pseudonym of Detroit techno pioneer Juan Atkins. Lovely, gritty, grimy, glitchy techno music.

Paddy Kingsland, BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Fourth Dimension (1973): Trippy compositions made for BBC Radio in the ’70s. Wacky and delightful but also dark at times.

Robert Rich: Another early pioneer in electronica and ambient music. His album Trances and Drones (2CD, 1994) is super long and, well, full of drones and repetition. Rich’s music is luxuriously languorous. Another highlight is Somnium (2001) (= Lat., “dream”), almost 9hrs of music, designed to be used in sleep-experiments. His “soundtrack” for Tarkovsky’s film Stalker, created in collaboration with Lustmord, is fantastic as well.

Seldom Family, Audrey & Laura (2017): This is a weird, trippy, Twin Peaks-themed album. It used to be available on Bandcamp, but was pulled for unknown reasons…

Staruha Mha: A cryptic Russian dark ambient project. I heard something about the artist completing suicide, but I am not sure if that actually happened or not. Very atmospheric stuff, especially the standout track “And the Trees Woke Up,” which sounds like walking through the brush of a deep, dark forest.

Tangerine Dream: Pioneers of electronica and trippy music from the ’70s until today, much of their catalogue could be called dark ambient. My favorite album of theirs is probably Tyger (1987), which mostly consists of William Blake’s poem “Tyger” set to music. Bask in the weirdness here.

Terror Against Terror, Psychological Warfare Technology Systems (1992): Ahead of its time, glitchy, industrial-sounding electronic music. Favorite tracks include “The Only Good God is a Dead God” and “By Any Means Necessary.” Also, another Lustmord side project.

William Basinski, Melancholia (2014): Found out about this on Bandcamp. Lovely, dreary, sparse dark ambient. I really enjoy this album but need to spend more time with it. I’m sure I would dig the rest of his catalogue as well.

Yuka Kitamura & Alex Roe, Seasons (2021): this album is short, only 4 tracks, and each track is named for a different season. It’s nostalgic, somehow, and just lovely, transporting you throughout the year! Available free on Bandcamp!

Electronic

As I said, the line between dark ambient and electronic is pretty grey, so perhaps you might want to shuffle some of these between genres. ID3 doesn’t have a Dark Ambient tag, though, so I’ve tagged 90% of it as “Ambient” either way; the electronic, though, is mostly tagged “Electronic.” Enjoy.

Ada Rook: really creepy, delightfully dreadful dark ambient. I don’t know how to classify these albums, but the first one I heard is separated from her twin, a dying android arrives on a mysterious island (2020), and I’ve been collecting albums here and there ever since. Check their music out here.

Alex Roe: I mentioned the album Seasons above which he did with Yuka Kitamura. His solo work is really great as well, and is essentially music for nonexistent videogames. Check out his Bandcamp.

Alison Selby: I met her on Mastodon and found out she did music! It’s delightfully trippy, glitchy electronica and I love it. Check out her Bandcamp.

Apex Creditor: Another friend whose music I found out about on Mastodon! Lovely electronic soundscapes. Check out his Bandcamp.

Bleep, The North Pole By Submarine (1990): Early album by Geir Jenssen aka Biosphere. Great, glitchy electronica, and the track “Sure Be Glad When You’re Dead” is hilarious.

bl1p, Person Place Thing (2020): Wonderfully glitchy, chiptune-sounding delightfulness. Check out their Bandcamp.

Boards of Canada: Another ubiquitous and esoteric electronica group, about which almost nothing is known for certain (they’re very secretive). Scottish duo of brothers. One of my favorite tracks is “The Beach at Redpoint,” but “Roygbiv” is also really awesome.

c0bra, LOCAL FORECAST (2021): This is an album very much inspired by, and perhaps even sampling, music from The Weather Channel. It’s a weird one! I found this one on Internet Archive, but I think the artist’s music can also be found on Bandcamp. See also NEWS AT 11 by 猫 シ Corp. which has very similar vibes, and Trammell Starks’ background music for The Weather Channel, collected on Music for Local Forecast CD1, CD2, and CD3. See also ゼロワン’s Your Local Forecast (This is a strange niche genre I’d never come across before!)

CIALYN: French electronic artist who is doing very similar things to Aphex Twin, but making it his own. Highly recommend his music, found on Bandcamp, especially sour leaves.

Ciclismo, Blue and Grey: An Incomplete History of British Rail (2020): This album evokes a trip on British rail, pretty much WYSIWYG. I really, really enjoyed this album. I’ve spent a tiny bit of time on British rail and I figure this nails it. Available on Bandcamp!

Cybotron, Enter (1983; expanded edition, 2013): Early Detroit techno project by Juan Atkins of “Model 500” fame. “Clear” (Detroit Mix) is an excellent track; I heard this randomly on Pandora and loved it.

Inverse Phase, Re2rocovered (2020): NES chiptune covers of pop songs (“Song 6502” covering Blur’s “Song 2”). Hilarious and awesome. Get it on Bandcamp!

Kent Sparling, Possum: Music for the Nocturne Podcast (2020): Kent Sparling, co-creator of the podcast Nocturne, a podcast all about the wonders and terrors of the night, does some lovely ambient background music for each episode. This is a collection of a lot of those tracks.

lastfuture, Signal to Noise (2020): Really wonderful, glitchy electronica. Check out their Bandcamp.

PILOTPRIEST: Pseudonym of Anthony Scott Burns, whose film COME TRUE (2021) was a harrowing look at dreams and nightmares. His soundtrack for the film is absolutely lovely, and his other work is also really great. Available at Bandcamp. I’m collecting albums slowly.

Ramxes: Great electronica, kinda glitchy, and gloomy. Found out about him on Black Artist Database and his music is really good. I’d almost call it apocalyptic in some ways. Check out his music on Bandcamp!

RAPIDPUNCHES: I have 3 albums by this artist – heard about them on Mastodon – and this is really glitchy, chiptuney goodness, soundtracks to games that never were. Track titles are very evocative and I feel like I’m listening to epic quests unfolding in my ears! Get it on Bandcamp!

R3(tronaut): Both albums I’ve bought are amazing, chiptuney goodness, and would be right at home as video game soundtracks. Check out their Bandcamp!

Ricky Eat Acid, When They Align Just So, Memories of Another Life Bleed Into My Own (2020): Not sure about the rest of his music, but this is the perfect soundtrack to a game that never got made. It reminds me of a soundtrack to a wonderful SNES RPG. Check it out here.

rRoxymore: Electronic artist I heard about via Black Artist Database (formerly Black Bandcamp) (and I think on Mastodon as well?). Really lovely electronic music. Check out her Bandcamp.

Sam Aleums: Really nice ambient electronica. Heard about and met them on Mastodon. Happy I bought their albums! Check out their Bandcamp.

The Avalanches: Really great Australian electronic music group. Their album Since I Left You (2000), with an alternate, extended version called The Album, is pure fun. The standout track for me is “Frontier Psychiatrist,” which I heard randomly while listening to college radio in a friend’s car one night; I was thankfully able to track it down later on. Check out the bizarre must-see video here.

The KLF: There is a lot of history with this group, what a bizarre rabbit hole to go down! This British duo started as The JAMs (“The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu”), a name inspired by Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! Trilogy books. The “JAMs” are a secret society in the book; I tried to read through it but got stalled out and gave up because it was too bizarre. KLF stands, apparently, for “Kallisti Liberation Front.” “Kallisti” comes from Greek καλλίστῃ (kallistei), “to the most beautiful,” referencing the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, to which the goddess of discord, Eris, was not invited, and the subsequent Judgment of Paris which precipitated the Trojan War. Wild stuff. Highlights include “Justified and Ancient” (the video is bonkers, especially the one with Tammy Wynette), and “Last Train to Trancentral.” “It’s Grim Up North” is also worth checking out.

Time’s Up, Obsolete (1999): Very glitchy sound collage ranging from Pac-Man to Dawn of the Dead samples. Super weird stuff and well worth checking out. No relation to the modern “Time’s Up” movement, though.

Zackery Wilson: His SNESQUE albums are really quite fascinating. He took instrument samples from SNES games and made songs using them! The results are really wonderful. Check his music out here on Bandcamp.

Game Soundtracks

Some highlights of my collection of game soundtracks. I’ve been collecting video game soundtracks since high school, so for over 20 years now, and they’re lovely. If you haven’t checked it out, there is an excellent video game music podcast called Singing Mountain. I’ve heard about some wonderful stuff on there that even I hadn’t heard of before (RIP Singing Mountain!). OK, here goes.

BAD DUDES, Chronotorious (2009): A strange but nice tribute album of music from Chrono Trigger. I have quite a few of these, because why not?

Christopher Larkin, Hollow Knight OST: I’d been meaning to play Hollow Knight for years; I’ve heard about it probably as long as I’d heard of Shovel Knight. I thought they were relatively similar games, but no, they are quite different. When I bought Hollow Knight on Steam, I was instantly hooked and played it for hours upon hours. I’m near the end of the game and need to beat it, but yeah. The soundtrack is beautiful as all hell, perfectly evoking the landscapes, areas, and events in the game. One of the best I’ve heard in years. Get it on Bandcamp! The companion piece Gods and Monsters is also wonderful!

• I absolutely love the soundtrack to the sequel, Silksong, as well!

Eirik Suhrke’s sprawling soundtrack to the equally-sprawling UFO 50, a collection of 50 “retro” games unearthed that were developed for a forgotten game system by UFOSoft, is excellent and you should check it out!

Eric W. Brown, Sea of Stars OST (2023): Sea of Stars is one of my favorite games these days (see here for more on the game itself), and it has an absolutely lovely soundtrack. Bonus, Brown is Denver-based, as far as I know! I’m sure it’s available for purchase elsewhere, but I bought my copy on Steam as DLC for the game, which included not only .mp3 files but also .wavs which I could transcode to flac, score! See below for another marvelous album by him…

Final Fantasy soundtracks: I have soundtracks for FF1-FF8; I think my sister has the FF9 soundtrack but I don’t. All of them are great in their own ways; the first I ever bought was the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack. Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI are also very dear to my heart. I also highly recommend Final Fantasy: Pray (1994), a collection of vocal tracks that is quite fun.

Kingdom Hearts soundtracks: I have the soundtracks for Kingdom Hearts I & II only, as those are the only ones I own in the main series. Great fusion of Disney and Final Fantasy music.

Lena Raine, Celeste Original Soundtrack and Celeste: Farewell (Original Soundtrack): A perfect soundtrack for a perfect game. Celeste is a wonderful platformer, incredibly difficult but also incredibly rewarding, with an immersive and heartwrenching (and heartwarming) story. Check out Lena’s Bandcamp! (I also will probably get the Chicory soundtracks but I need to play that game more!)

Michiko Naruke, Wild ARMs Soundtrack (1999): Great Wild West-themed soundtrack for a great game; “Lone Bird in the Shire” is a shameless rip-off of Ennio Morricone’s “L’Estasi dell’Oro” (“The Ecstasy of Gold”) from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but it is amazing in its own right. Apparently there was an expanded, more “complete” edition of the soundtrack, but I never got around to getting that one.

Michiru Oshima, Legend of Legaia Soundtrack (1998): An underappreciated gem on the PSX, Legend of Legaia was really a great game, despite its occasionally-weird graphics. It also happened to have a fantastic soundtrack. Highlights include “Light of the Town” (the theme from Octam), and “Earth of Joy (Mist-free World Map).”

Nathan Wang, Return to Zork Soundtrack (1993): Return to Zork was one of the CD-ROM goodies that came with my first computer back in 1993, and I always enjoyed the soundtrack to the game. Of course, it’s on the CD, so is easy to rip and listen to later. I was only 9 at the time, and it was a great way to introduce me to computer gaming.

Osamu Sato: Composer for the game soundtrack to LSD Dream Emulator, a bonkers Japanese-only PSX game that is terrifyingly great. See here for more info. Lucy in the Sky with Dynamites (1998, “with” “Out Ass Mao” [anagram of Osamu Sato]): Main soundtrack to the game. Highlights include “LSD Choir” & “Neurons Firing.” LSD & Remixes (2CD, 1998): Remixes of the game themes.

Various OverClocked ReMix projects: OverClocked ReMix (OCReMix) is a lovely group that does various game music arrangement/remix albums. Check out their site here. Here are a few of the albums that I really enjoy:

• Chrono Symphonic (2CD, 2005): Another Chrono Trigger remix album, and the songs are orchestral/symphonic arrangements of the originals. Really lovely.
• Hometown Heroes: Town Themes Arranged (2018): A great collection of town themes, mostly from RPGs. The standout track, which is absolutely wonderful, is Earth Kid’s “Dream Until Tomorrow,” and you must check it out here. She wrote original lyrics for “Kids Run Through the City Corner” from Final Fantasy VI, and it’s just perfect.
• Radical Dreamers: Thieves of Fate (2008): Radical Dreamers (Nusumenai Houseki) is an underappreciated gem on the SNES peripheral SatellaView that never came to the USA. It was basically the prototype version of Chrono Cross, but has some important differences from that game. Great soundtrack, especially DrumUltima’s “Summer’s End (Epilogue),” which resembles the main thread running through much of Chrono Cross* (beautifully culminating on the CC soundtrack in “Time of Revealing Dreams”).

Rainbowdragoneyes, The Messenger OST (2018): Sea of Stars, mentioned above, is a prequel to The Messenger, which is a really tough platformer set in the same universe. Rainbowdragoneyes is the pseudonym of Eric W. Brown, who also did the more recent game’s soundtrack. This is lovely, glitchy, retro goodness all around. I bought my copy on Steam, but I imagine it’s available elsewhere too.

Ratvader, Ultros OST (2024): Ultros is a lovely, otherworldly Metroidvania set in a sarcophagus for an inexplicable being yearning to be reborn. It’s such a weird game, and the music is also weird and lovely. I got this soundtrack on Steam as well.

Ryuji Sasai, Rudra no Hihou OSV (1996): Rudra no Hihou (Treasure of the Rudra) is a very late-stage SNES JRPG that never made it to the USA, and is only available in English via fan translation. It involves a doomed world and impending apocalypse, and has four intersecting storylines. The music is really very good!

Silent Hill soundtracks: I have the first 3 Silent Hill soundtracks, composed by Akira Yamaoka, and they are terrifying and brilliant. As I mentioned above, they were my gateway to dark ambient.

Spencer Nilsen, ECCO the Dolphin CD OST (1993): I heard snippets of the ECCO the Dolphin soundtrack on Singing Mountain and thought it sounded delightfully strange. Great soundtrack for a really odd game.

Suikoden I & II soundtracks: Two of my favorite games for the PlayStation, and they have excellent soundtracks to boot. For whatever reason, Suikoden II has its soundtrack split into 2 volumes over 4 discs total, which was weird, but oh well. Suikoden has a 2-disc soundtrack.

Tsukasa Tawada, Ihatovo Monogatari OST (1993): I’ve gushed elsewhere about how amazing the game Ihatovo Monogatari, or Stories of Ihatovo, is. So too is its soundtrack.

VA, MYTH: The Xenogears Orchestral Album (2011): Really lovely orchestral arrangements of Xenogears music.

Xeno game soundtracks, including Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Xenoblade Chronicles:

• Yasunori Mitsuda, Xenogears OSV (2CD, 1998): One of my favorite soundtracks ever. Full of memorable songs and just perfectly suited to the game.
• Yasunori Mitsuda & Millennial Fair, Creid (1998): Celtic re-arrangements of Xenogears music. Very cool.
• Yasunori Mitsuda, Xenosaga Episode I OSV (2CD, 2002): Another excellent soundtrack for an excellent game. Sadly, Mitsuda didn’t continue on for Episodes II & III, but they were both great as well.
• Yuki Kajiura, Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse Movie Score OST (2CD, 2004): In some ways, highlights from the soundtrack, but still great.
• Shinji Hosoe, Xenosaga II In-Game Rip (2004): More from the soundtrack, apparently ripped off of the disc itself.
• Yuki Kajiura, Xenosaga III OSV Best Tracks (2CD, 2006): Xenosaga III also had a wonderful soundtrack. This isn’t all of it, though.
• Yuki Kajiura, Xenosaga III OSV Unreleased (2006): The missing tracks (as far as I know).
• VA, Xenoblade Chronicles OSV (4CD, 2010): Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii has an excellent soundtrack – especially the world map themes, which are breathtaking (e.g., “Eruyt Sea,” “Mt. Valac,” and others). Wonderful stuff.

Various Chrono soundtracks:

• Yasunori Mitsuda, Chrono Trigger OSV (3CD, 1995): Another of my favorite soundtracks ever. Full of memorable tracks and wonderful music.
• Yasunori Mitsuda, Chrono Trigger: The Brink of Time (1995): Jazzy re-arrangements of Chrono Trigger music. Very fun.
• Yasunori Mitsuda, Chrono Cross OSV (3CD, 1999): Chrono Cross also had a wonderful soundtrack. You really can’t go wrong with Mitsuda.

Music from Yume Nikki: Yume Nikki is a really creepy adventure game for PC, almost like a creepypasta made into a game. It is utterly bizarre and fun, and has some really unnerving music to boot. I have a few albums of its music:

• KIKIYAMA, Yume Nikki OST Gamerip (2004): Ripped right from the game itself, as the name implies. Most of the music was .ogg format, IIRC.
• KIKIYAMA, Yume Nikki Selected Tracks (2017): Remastered tracks released by the original composer. Still creepy as ever.
• Silent Cicada, Yume Nikki Reimagined (2014): Fan re-workings of Yume Nikki music. Lovely stuff.

Miscellaneous

This is under “Misc” in my own collection, as it wasn’t easily categorizable elsewhere. Here goes:

AKUA, Them Spirits (2019): I am not entirely sure how to categorize her music. I think it’s been described as R&B, and that makes sense; it’s quite soulful and heartfelt, and romantic here and there. Great album! Discovered on Black Artist Database as well. Check her music out on Bandcamp!

Atom and His Package: Weird synth-punk that is just kooky and fun. I have A Society of People Named Elihu (1997), which includes the fabulous “Me and My Black Metal Friends,” as well as “Punk Rock Academy.” I also have his self-titled album (1997). A friend in undergrad got me into this stuff, and it’s really weird.

Rap & Hip Hop

Cadence Weapon: First heard of this Edmonton rapper through his mixtape Cadence Weapon is the Black Hand (2005), via Myspace back in the day. He’s since released a few more albums, of which I have two. Check out “Black Hand,” which is a good sampling of his earlier material (sorry, the video is censored; find uncensored audio elsewhere, but the video is hilarious).

Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf, Big Shots (2003): Super-underappreciated old-school hip-hop album, recorded in 1993 before Charizma’s untimely death, then ultimately released in 2003. Highlights include “Methods,” “Red Light Green Light,” and “This is a Smirk.”

Del the Funky Homosapien & Deltron 3030: Del, part of the West Coast crews Souls of Mischief & Hieroglyphics, is extremely talented (and also happens to be Ice Cube’s cousin). His early stuff, such as on I Wish My Brother George Was Here (1991) and No Need for Alarm (1993) is great, but later on, he really shines on Deltron 3030 (2000). Deltron 3030 was, if you don’t know, a supergroup of Del, legendary producer Dan the Automator, and DJ Kid Koala. I had the pleasure of seeing a Deltron 3030 show in ~2018 and it was magical. A second album, Event II, came out in 2013. It’s good, but not as good as the original.

Digable Planets: Old-school ’90s hip-hop group. Probably best-known for “Where I’m From,” “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like That)”, and others. A friend got me into them and I’ve enjoyed all their stuff!

DJ Jester, River Walk Riots (2001) and Heavily Booted (2002): DJ Jester is known as the “Filipino Fist” and is a talented turntablist from San Antonio, TX. River Walk Riots is a relentlessly fun mix, and he blends all sorts of genres together; who would imagine that a DJ would mix in “The Yellow Rose of Texas” on a hip-hop record?

DJ Shadow will always be a favorite of mine, but I really stopped listening after The Private Press (2002). I love Endtroducing (1996), which got me into turntablism and scratching, and same with Preemptive Strike.

DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist’s Product Placement (2001): This album is bananas. It’s a mixture of all sorts of old commercials, ’60s and ’70s music, and other weirdness. It’s an hour-long aural assault and it’s wonderful. Product Placement Breaks (2003) is worth checking out to hear the source material as well.

Dynomite D, By the Way (2000): a great lo-fi, b-boy, graffiti artist kind of album, and is a real classic worth checking out.

Eric B. & Rakim, Paid in Full (1987): a great old-school hip-hop album. Recorded quickly, Rakim demonstrates a wide range of rapping skills and wordplay, and the production is also top-notch by Eric B.

Janelle Monáe: They are absolutely fierce and amazing. A friend on Mastodon got me into their stuff, and their catalogue goes from pop to R&B to hip-hop and beyond, with a heavy dose of Afrofuturism thrown in. The newest album (at this time), The Age of Pleasure, is wondrous stuff.

KMD: A great old-school hip-hop group, comprising Zev Love X (who would later become MF DOOM (RIP!), DJ Subroc, and Onyx the Birthstone Kid. Only two albums, Mr. Hood (1991) and Bl_ck B_st_rds (recorded earlier; unreleased until 2001), and both are great in different ways. Subroc’s untimely death cut the group short, and was the catalyst, many think, for Zev’s transformation into MF DOOM.

Kool Keith & his many aliases/side-projects:

• Dr. Octagon, Dr. Octagonecologyst (1996): This is sort of the sister project to the later Deltron 3030. What a bizarre album. Dr. Octagon is a space-faring, terrifying doctor, and wow is this a strange album but I love it. Back in undergrad, I had “I Got to Tell You” as my answering machine message (people hated it, I’m sure). A must-listen album.
• Dr. Dooom, First Come First Served (1999): After the “death” of Dr. Octagon, Dr. Dooom takes his place. Highlights include “Apartment 223” and “Body Bag.”

MF DOOM (& various aliases/side-projects): MF DOOM, for a long time, was my favorite rapper ever. I still really like his stuff, but not as much as I used to. R.I.P. to him in 2020, however; he was a legend! Operation: Doomsday (2001) is a near-perfect album, and Viktor Vaughn: Vaudeville Villain (2003) is also excellent. Other aliases include King Geedorah, Madvillain (with Madlib, 2004), Dangerdoom (with Danger Mouse, 2005), JJ DOOM (with Jneiro Jarel, 2012). I also highly recommend the Ghost Whirl EP he did with Jonathan Toth from Hoth; the remix of the title track is amazing, and so is Jonathan Toth’s solo “I 4give U 4 The Truth” (which samples “Questions in a World of Blue” from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me).

Missy D: A rapper from Vancouver BC; I found her music on Black Artist Database. Listened through and really enjoyed it. I haven’t heard many female rappers and would like to listen to more (if you have any recommendations, let me know!). Check out her Bandcamp.

Rejjie Snow, Baw Baw Black Sheep (2021): Recommended by a friend on Mastodon, this is a great album that reminds me of underground hip-hop of the early 2000s, and the artist is based in Dublin! One of MF DOOM’s last appearances is on the track “Cookie Chips,” so that shows the album’s pedigree. Find it on Bandcamp!

RJD2: RJD2 is an excellent DJ and producer; his debut, Dead Ringer (2002), was very well-received. His EP The Horror (2003) was also a great album. I lost track of his career after Since We Last Spoke (2004), but I am sure he is still making great music.

Sammus: An excellent rapper! She takes her name from Samus Aran of Metroid fame, and even has a whole album, ANOTHER M (2014) dedicated to Samus. Check her music out on Bandcamp.

UNKLE, Psyence Fiction (1998): I have no idea how I even heard about this album first, but I was really excited to check it out when it came out. DJ Shadow united with producer James Lavelle to form a supergroup called UNKLE. Notable guests on the album included Mike D of the Beastie Boys, Kool G Rap, Richard Ashcroft of The Verve, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead, of all people. Yorke’s track “Rabbit in Your Headlights” is nearly perfect, and includes a lovely sample from the movie Jacob’s Ladder.

Rock

My definitions of rock may be a little loose at times. Often I’ve included pop in my rock section. Your mileage may vary. Here you go.

Alaska in Winter: I have no real good way to describe AIW (aka Brandon Bethancourt). I got into Alaska in Winter after learning that Brandon is friends with Zach Condon of Beirut (more below), and wow. Synthpoppy Balkan-folk goodness, abounding with vocoders and lasers. Most of his music is free on YouTube, as he has sadly quit the music business. Seriously, knock yourself out, it’s amazing stuff. Highlights include “Streetgang [parts 1-3],” “Berlin,” “A Love Note from Your Piano,” and “Staring at the Sun.” (See my post gushing about my love of AIW here).

Alice Skye, Friends with Feelings (2018): I really enjoy this album. Folk from a Black Australian woman. This is the only thing she’s released (at least on Bandcamp!) and that’s a shame, because it’s amazing stuff. Check it out here.

Alvvays: Indie rock band from Canada, as far as I know. I saw them open for The War on Drugs at Red Rocks, and liked them way more (we were going to see the concert with friends, who preferred the latter headliner). Check out their Bandcamp.

Annika Jayne: Singer from Germany who does some really lovely, chill music. I found out about her from friends on Mastodon, and have really enjoyed her earnest, pretty music. Check out her Bandcamp.

Amythyst Kiah: Soulful folk, just really lovely stuff. I found out about her through Bandcamp, of course! Please check all of her work out! We saw her live at a very cozy show and it was lovely!

Arlo Parks: Excellent indie rock artist from London (IIRC), and again, someone on Mastodon recommended her to me. She even had indie darling Phoebe Bridgers guest on one of her songs! Check out her Bandcamp.

Beach Bunny: Really earnest indie pop. I found about her stuff on Mastodon and it’s all really quite lovely. On Bandcamp. We saw her live and she was wonderful!!

Big Joanie: Loud and proud Black women doing punk music out of the UK. This is great stuff and you need to check out their Bandcamp.

Beirut: I used to be obsessed with Beirut, and I confess I don’t listen to them as much as I used to. Beirut is fronted by Zach Condon, a multi-instrumentalist who hails from New Mexico, and has a generally-rotating group of backing musicians. Basically, Condon made the first album in his bedroom, and it’s heavily inspired by Balkan folk music, French chanson, and other world music. Just lovely stuff. I learned about Beirut on The Steve Show, and “A Sunday Smile” really blew my mind when I first heard it. My wife adores them too. Listen to whatever you can find. This live version of “The Penalty” is fantastic.

Blind Pilot: a dear friend recommended this group to me awhile back. They’re from Astoria, OR, and do some really lovely indie rock. Check out their Bandcamp!

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone: Really lo-fi, soulful, often-emo music about everyday troubles, lost love, and loss of innocence. The brainchild of Owen Ashworth, who grew up in the South Bay (Redwood City, CA, if I’m not mistaken), this is some lovely stuff. Highlights include “Young Shields,” “Nashville Parthenon,” and “Cold White Christmas.” Now available on Bandcamp!

Cassandra Jenkins: I don’t know how to categorize her music. It’s very earnest, soothing indie rock. My spouse asked me to buy an album for them before they had a Bandcamp account, and hilariously they haven’t listened to the album and I really enjoyed it, and everything I subsequently picked up!

Colbie Caillat: I remember hearing “Bubbly” everywhere on the radio almost 20 years ago when it came out and I remember really disliking it. But I’ve heard more of her stuff in recent years and actually really enjoy it. It’s poppy but I think she has a nice voice and the songs are interesting. I’m kinda obsessed with “Brighter than the Sun.”

Dylan Earl: Folksy music, kinda twangy country, from Arkansas. A friend on Mastodon recommended his music, and I have been very pleased overall. On Bandcamp..

Gasoline Lollipops: Founded in Colorado, they are sort of alt-country and really rock hard. I’d definitely like to hear more of their stuff, and thankfully they have a Bandcamp! The first album I heard was Soul Mine (2017). My favorite song of theirs is probably “Burns”; check out a lovely live version here.

Hello Saferide: A Swedish journalist-turned-singer-songwriter, Annika Norlin does some really fantastic music as Hello Saferide. Really down-to-earth songs about love lost and found, and oddities of life in general.

Johnny Flynn: I heard him first on The Steve Show as well; his album A Larum (2008) is really excellent. British folk rock at its best. Check out “Shore to Shore,” “Cold Bread,” and “The Wrote and the Writ.”

Katya Grasso: We saw her open for Amythyst Kiah and she does some really wonderful folk music. To Keep What I Love is the only full album I’ve found, on Bandcamp.

Low Roar: Indie rock band, based in Iceland, with a dearly-departed lead singer. I really like this stuff. It’s hopeful but also very dreary. Very famous for being featured heavily in the game Death Stranding. I’ve been slowly collecting their music and I love it.

Mitski: I am kinda obsessed with Mitski, as many others are. She does lovely indie pop, with a dark streak to it. I absolutely love the video for “Love Me More” off of the fairly recent album Laurel Hell. All of her stuff is available on Bandcamp.

Nicole Yun, Paper Suit (2019): Really nice indie rock. I think I heard about her on Mastodon. Check out her Bandcamp.

Oh Fortuna, The Fireworks of Electric Human Love (EP, 2009): Strange but delightful little album by a band out of Gainesville, FL. “Faces I Can See” is a standout track here. Also available on Bandcamp!

Our Native Daughters, Songs of Our Native Daughters (2019): A group of Black women, including the stellar Amythyst Kiah, singing traditional and not-so-traditional folk songs. The album has a strong anti-slavery, anti-racist, and didactic message. It’s fantastic. Check it out here.

Peggy Seeger, Almost Commercially Viable (2000): A really lovely British folk album. I heard this on the radio late one night, in particular “Night Song,” which was just a wonderful little song. I haven’t been able to find her music anywhere on YouTube, but I got this album off of her Bandcamp; do check out “Night Song” if nothing else, as it’s lovely.

Phoebe Bridgers: Really depressingly lovely indie rock. Her music is a little off-kilter (“Halloween” in particular, delightfully dark), but wonderful and rough around the edges. It’s hard to describe. I bet her music would have fit perfectly in The Neon Demon, which I just watched recently. Check her music out on Bandcamp! She is also part of boygenius with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker.

Pickle Darling: really pretty indie music out of New Zealand. Highly recommended by friends on Mastodon and I was not steered wrong. On Bandcamp.

Powderpaint: Absolutely wonderful synthpop by an amazing duo from the UK. Found out about them on Mastodon and can’t get enough. One of my favorite artists I discovered in 2020. Check out their Bandcamp!

Rap, Rap (199X): Early side-project of Brandon Bethancourt (Alaska in Winter) and his friend Hari Ziznewski. Strange, glitchy synthpop. Highlights include “Sega Song” and “Keytar Love 1986” (a distorted precursor to AIW’s “A Love Note from Your Piano”).

Sharon Van Etten: Great singer-songwriter; I’d like to check out more of her stuff. She has a Bandcamp as well. My favorite song is probably “Whirlwind.”

Tamaryn, Dreaming the Dark (2019): Dark, moody, not quite “emo” rock. Very lush instrumentals and yeah, just moody all around. I dig it. Find it on Bandcamp!

The Low Anthem: A friend recommended I check these guys out, and they are really pretty great. I only have their first three albums, and I really enjoy What The Crow Brings (2007), which has the great track “Ballad of the Broken Bones.” 2009’s Oh My God, Charlie Darwin also has the excellent track “To Ohio.”

The Magnetic Fields: Stephin Merritt, frontman for The Magnetic Fields, has been extremely prolific over the years, and has a bunch of side-projects as well. He produces some really lovely, sometimes sad, songs about love and life and everything else.

Tina Schouw, The Goodnight Songs (2008): One of the loveliest albums I’ve heard in a good while. Schouw is South African and on this album, what you see is what you get: dreamy, calm, comforting folk songs, for children and adults alike. Just wonderful. Definitely check it out here.

Travis, The Man Who (1999): Friends of mine gave me this album around the time it came out, and, very reductively, they’re kind of like the Scottish Radiohead. It’s a great album but I haven’t listened to it as much as I used to; ack, it is over 20 years old now!

Turvy Organ: We saw them play a show locally in a little venue, and they were really good. I think they’re based in Denver and they have a Bandcamp!

Warren Zevon: My ex got me into Zevon’s music and wow, he was brilliant. His career spanned from the late ’60s up until his death in 2003. Some of my favorite songs include “Frank and Jesse James,” “Excitable Boy,” “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” “The Hula Hula Boys,” and “For My Next Trick I’ll Need a Volunteer.” I recently did a listen-through to the albums, and I think I like later-in-life Zevon better (even though the older stuff is full of bangers).

Various Artists, I REMEMBER THESE HITS FROM THE ‘80S: A twisted, mirror-world look at one of those “greatest hits” albums you might see on a late-night infomercial back in the late ’90s. However, as far as I can tell, this is a project created out of whole cloth, and made to sound like an actual artefact from the ’80s. It’s mesmerising.

Yasmin Williams: She is from Virginia and does acoustic guitar, specializing in fingerpicking. We saw her live in a cozy little show and her music is wonderful! We even got to talk with her afterwards and she was so friendly and nice and gracious! Please check out her music on Bandcamp!

Yazoo: I only learned about this ’80s New Wave group via Fringe’s S5 premiere, in which “Only You” plays; later I realized that “Only You” showed up in Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 as well. Lovely song.

Yola, Stand for Myself (2021): British soul by a brilliant Black woman. My wife heard her music on our local radio station and told me about her, and she’s fantastic. She saw her at Red Rocks as well. Wonderful stuff, check it out on Bandcamp!

Soundtracks

Here’s some highlights and odd soundtracks that you may never have heard of before.

Babylon 5 soundtracks, mostly by Christopher Franke (erstwhile of Tangerine Dream!): excellent all around! Give them a listen sometime here.

Basil Kirchin, The Abominable Dr. Phibes OST (1972): One of my favorite movies, and it has a lovely soundtrack to boot. “War March of the Priests,” the opening track, a version of Mendelssohn’s “Kriegsmarsch der Priester,” is chilling.

Battlestar Galactica soundtracks, mostly by Bear McCreary, are also quite lovely. The Apollo and Adama themes are some of the best, with some wonderful Celtic themes. S1’s “Wander My Friends” is gorgeous, with poignant Gaelic lyrics, and S2’s “Reuniting the Fleet,” S3’s “Admiral and Commander,” and S4’s “Farewell Apollo” are especially lovely.

Disasterpiece, It Follows OST (2015): What a terrifying soundtrack for an equally terrifying movie (one of my favorites). Favorites include “Old Maid” and “Father.”

Disney soundtracks: I have a ton of Disney music, mostly from the Disney parks (Disneyland Official Album, Disney World Official Album, A Musical History of Disneyland [6CD]), and also Walt Disney and the 1964 World’s Fair (5CD). An especially interesting album is Another Musical Souvenir of Walt Disney World, an effort by a Disney World fan to reconstruct the experience of a day at the parks. You can find that here for free.

Howard Blake, The Changeling OST (2007): The soundtrack to a terrifying haunted-house horror film with George C. Scott, this is definitely worth checking out.

John Gale, Dr. Phibes Rises Again OST (2003): The soundtrack for the sequel to The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Fun fact: all of the track titles, for whatever reason, the composer put into Latin. Bonus, too: Vincent Price singing a lovely rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from the end of the film).

John Murphy, Sunshine_: Music from the Motion Picture_ (2008): Sunshine was an unexpectedly terrifying film, and had a great soundtrack.

Philip Glass, The Music of Candyman (2001): I love the (first two) Candyman films, and the music is top-notch, especially “Helen, It Was Always You” and “Helen’s Theme.”

Rainer, Petscop OST (2019): The official soundtrack album for the utterly creepy and compelling YouTube webseries Petscop. The series came out a few years ago and was presented as a Let’s Play series of videos for a supposedly-unfinished/unreleased PlayStation game from 1997. It’s so good.

The Star Wars soundtracks go without saying; I have the 2-disc special editions that were released when the special editions of the original trilogy came out.

Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks for the “Dollars” trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) are timeless and amazing.

Susan Vaslev, Music from Enchanted Forest and Other Special Places (2006): I never knew I needed this soundtrack until I bought it. I grew up in Oregon, and grew up going to Enchanted Forest, a local theme park near the capital, Salem, here and there. We went recently when I visited family in Oregon (I hadn’t been in probably 15-20 years), and we had a great time. I especially enjoyed the water show (fountains with lights in time to the music). This album is MIDI on steroids and it’s brilliant. “Willamette Overture” is epic in scope, and so is “Challenge of Mondor.” Overall, it’s great, and seriously, it really is magical. I haven’t seen this anywhere online, unfortunately, and had to just rip the CD I bought.

I also have a ton of Twin Peaks music: the original soundtracks for Seasons 1 & 2 (1990, 2007), the Fire Walk with Me soundtrack (1992), the soundtrack for The Return (2017), and of course, the 200+-track The Twin Peaks Archive (2012).

VA, A Charlie Brown Christmas (3CD, 2007): My parents got this box set for me and it’s really quite enjoyable. I’ve always loved the Christmas special, and the music is an integral part of that enjoyment.

Vangelis, Blade Runner OST (Esper Edition) (2CD bootleg, 2002): This is one of the most complete Blade Runner soundtracks I’ve come across. Some others may have more, but I really enjoy this version of it. If you find a copy, it’s totally worthwhile.

Wendy Carlos, Clockwork Orange Original Score (1972): Wendy Carlos is a pioneer of electronic music and also transitioned male-to-female at a fairly early period, so she is a trailblazer in more ways than one. I absolutely love the score to A Clockwork Orange, and this is a nice version, including the full version of “Timesteps,” which was excerpted on the official film soundtrack.

Vaporwave

I don’t entirely know how to categorize vaporwave, or even explain it. It’s characterized by nostalgia, heavily relies upon samples, and I like to think of it almost as a sort of ouroboros. It’s music remixed to hell and back and turned into something else entirely. It’s like the best muzak you ever heard, something you wish you were hearing piped through mall speakers. I should write a post on it sometime on its own, honestly. There are a ton of artists doing it and I, of course, have a listing, but I don’t have anything distinctive to say about them as individuals (yet). Look for an entry on it soon, and I’ll try to add some here too.

Alright everyone, that’s it for now! I hope that you’ve gotten some good recommendations from here and enjoyed the read. Sorry it ended up so long! Cheers.