MUSIC

"Best of lofi hip hop 2022" Lofi Girl's beats to study to.

"Relaxing Jazz" So hard not to be cloying and bland, this hits the sweet spot.

"Work and Jazz Piano" Similar, but a full stream.

"Positive Day" three hours of lofi chill.

"Programming ▫️ Designing ▫️ Hacking ▫️ Coding ▫️ Focus ▫️ Music" by Filfar. Youtube long mix for work.

"Franz Liszt Piano" Fifty minutes from the pen of the virtuoso pianist & composer.

"Lofi Hip Hop Radio" Mix. GGH DSU Recovery—good find Cara.

Whiskey Blues Playlist. Over 5 hours of undemanding bluesy noodling.

"Moon Safari" Air. The whole trippy album - my favourite Air.

"The 6 Wives of Henry VIII" Rick Wakeman. My first vinyl. This music is part of me—etched into my soul.

"Simple Things" Zero 7. Full album. The soundtrack of 2002. Takes me back to a happy holiday in Brora.

"Caravanserai" Santana. IMO their finest creation - atmospheric, symphonic, jazz-funk-fusion. A musical delight.

"LA Woman" The Doors. Jim Morrison's final album, the definitive Doors.

"Marquee Moon" Television. The late Tom Verlaine's influential 1977 masterpiece.

"Smooth Piano Jazz" three and a half hours of it. Sweet.

"Funky Jazz Groove Music" if that's your thing then you'll love this

"Mozart v Chopin" There can be no winner. Stunning music.

"Making movies" Dire Straits. Helped keep my feet on the ground during those days of acne and girl-shyness.

"A New Night" Bill Evans. Touching souls with the aid of a piano.

"Collection" Simply Red. Over 2 hours of slick, inoffensive, well-written pop.

"Recreational Mixtape" Donald Fagan. His signature sound, and lots of it.

"x-Dreams" Annette Peacock. Versatile and unique. You will love it or hate it.

"Requiem in D Minor K. 626" Mozart, Shreier. For me the most tear-stained version of this sublime requiem.

"Ave Verum Corpus" Mozart. Perfection? Short but staggeringly mature composition from the young genius. Choir of King's College, Cambridge.

"Miserere" Allegri. The definitive recording of this classy vocal counterpoint. Famously pirated by a young Mozart.

"Nocturnes" Chopin, by Thierry de Brunhoff. Nearly 2 hours of late-night piano.

"Rite of Spring" Bernstein 1958. My parents had this version on vinyl. Wow!

"Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A major K 622" Cleveland Orchestra. Natural musical genius on display.

"Adagios - Quiet Classical" Various. All very familiar but sometimes this is what you need.

"Dance of the Blessed Spirits" Nicola. Recorded by a proud father.

"Adagio in G Minor" Albinoni. Copernicus Chamber Orchestra. Those perfect chords—tears never far away.

"Piano Concerto #2 in C Minor" Rachmaninov. From when he had depression. That 2nd movement.

"Requiem" Faure, Sinfonia Rotterdam. One of the big 3 requiems. Moving performance.

"Ein Deutsches Requiem" Brahms, von Karajan. The last of the big 3 requiems.

"Lacrimosa" from Mozart's Requiem 626. A contender for most beautiful music ever written.

"Rite of Spring" Stravinsky. The New England Conservatory Philharmonia's take on this remarkable piece of music.

"Live from Studio S2" Hania Rani. Polish keyboard player. Some looper stuff. How do you classify this? Maybe if Debussy was alive today.

"Best of" Debussy. Glorious meandering music like a mountain stream.

"Behind The Beat" from 31:31 by Annette Peacock. This album is an expensive rarity. I want the rest!

"Piano Improvisations" Hiromi. The little Japanese jazz-bomb, terrifyingly talented, toying with a Proms audience.

"Undercover" Bill Evans (the saxophone one). Great background jazz instrumentals.

"The Night Train" Jump to 9 minutes for "Hymn to Freedom". Oscar Peterson. Just wait, it catches fire Oscar-style.

"Cantaloup Island" orig Herbie Hancock. US3's tweaked version. An unlikely jazz-hiphop mix that works.

"High Flying" Hiromasa Suzuki 1976. Japanese jazz-fusion. Coooool!

"Promises" Floating Points. Beautiful, dreamy, ambient.

"You'll Never Come Back" Thirsty Moon (1973). German Jazz-Funk-Prog.

"Salute to the Sun" Matthew Halsall. Laid back jazz. As mellow as it gets. Sonic therapy!

"World War Blues" Eric Bibb. Great show in Glasgow - RIP my friend Paul Merchant who got the tickets.

"The 37th Chamber" Courtney Pine. Modern Day Jazz Stories. Jazz with power.

"There Ain't No Sweet Man" Norma Waterson. Nicely sung.

"Blue Marine" Masaru Imada. Smooth, this is actually really great.

"Corina Corina" Alexis Korner 1967. The bluesiest of blues. Gravel and tears.

"Smoke 'n' Mirrors" Simon Phillips gives a 13 minute hypnotically perfect and respectful drumming masterclass.

"Epitaph" King Crimson. Greg Lake's earnest vocals. My first jaw-dropping experience of mellotron-rock.

"They Dance Alone" Sting. At his story-telling best.

"Friend is a 4-Letter Word" Cake. John McCrea at his quirky composing and performing best.

"You Never Knew Me" Magazine. From 'The Correct use of Soap', spiky and inspiring.

"Instrumental" Focus. Part of the soundtrack of my teens. Listen to this in the dark.

"Stupid Girl" Garbage - Live. Our Shirley leaves the streets of Edinburgh and terrifies and teases America. Sheer gallus joy!

The Sound Defects: "The Iron Horse". Decent album from whoever they are.

"Darling Lorraine" Paul Simon. Welcome to the emotional wringer.

"Celestine" Kirsty MacColl. This is a wicked, wicked song.

"White Room" Alicia's Attic. Karen & Michelle's unique vocals. Captivating and sexy song-writing.

"Let Love Rule" Lenny Kravitz. Slick, slushy, undemanding pop, but I like it.

"Life During Wartime" Talking Heads - live. "This ain't no party, this aint no disco, this aint no foolin' around". Can you take your eyes off this?

"The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" Brian Eno. From one of the most influential albums ever - and that squeaky synth solo.

"Some of them are Old, Some of them are New" Brian Eno. Playful genius, I'm singing along just thinking about this.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" U2. Just kids, but they were carving their own musical path. At their best here, pre-politics.

"Love Delicatessen" Presidents of the USA. "I couldn't believe the size of the portions..." Infectious joy!

"Freedom of Choice" Devo. "A victim of collision on the open sea..."

"Knock on Wood" David Live. From Bowie's amazing Philadelphia concert (cover of a classic).

"In France they Kiss on Main St." Joni Mitchell. From the truly amazing "Hissing of Summer Lawns"

"The Hounds of Winter" Sting. From "Mercury Falling". Supreme recording, one of my hifi test tracks.

"When Will You" Deacon Blue. Not a huge fan of DB but this is a fantastic song.

"Two Shoes" The Cat Empire. Unique Melbourne band - these guys deserve to be huge.

"The Cossack Song" Love Song. Great live '70s Christian rock. Phil Keaggy's towering guitar - these guys are tight!

"Here He Comes" Brian Eno. Pretty sing-along with Eno's poetic lyrics. Relax, close your eyes.

"Trouble" Von Hertzen Brothers. They play Glasgow regularly, always a great live band.

"Starless" King Crimson. Meltingly beautiful, astonishing musicianship from the trio on the whole album (Red).

"Lucky Man" Emerson Lake & Palmer. From their first album. Emerson's one and only take of that classic closing synth solo.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" 801 Live, 1976. Some covers are better than the original: IMO this is one of them.

"Needle and the Damage Done" - live. Neil Young. Short & poignant.

"Make Time" Puressence. A Manchester band who never made it but boy they were good.

"It's a Plain Shame" Frampton, live. Memorable in-car cassette-player soft rock from my teens.

"Aquamarine" Santana. Beautiful chilled, slow-building, late night hifi.

"Stars" Dubstar. Something creepy about their sound—unique Geordie band.

"A Prayer for England" Massive Attack. Sinead nailed it here for the MA team.

"Outdoor Miner" Wire. Chirpy brilliance.

"Milk" Garbage in a mellow mood. Perfectly composed and executed.

"Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo" Johnny Winter. Other bands borrowed a lot from this sound. Teenage cassette again.

"Heiss" Nina Hagen - Live. Such a nervous, shy, retiring young woman. What did genteel London think?

"Locomotive Breath" Jethro Tull. A musical tour de force from Ian Anderson's boys.

"Desire" Mulu. Laura Campbell's haunting vocals. Alan Edmund's mournful backing.

"Stranded in a Limousine" Paul Simon. "He was a mean individual, he had a heart like a bone, ..." Genius.

"Indoor Games" King Crimson. Unique sounds from their creative and deliciously weird jazzy period.

"Bolero" Remixed by KC. 1970 and nobody, but nobody, was making music quite like this.

"Cat Food" King Crimson, their only foray into the pop charts—they played Top of the Pops!

"The Song of the Sea Goat" Pete Sinfield. The wordsmith at his best, ably backed by his pals from KC.

"Larks Tongues in Aspic (pt1)" King Crimson. I was 17. I had never heard music like this. Something exploded inside me!

"Thirty Years" UK. I heard this music on a radio 4 show in the 80s called "Interesting Music". 3:22, I knew it would light up!

"The Revolution will not be Televised" Gil Scott Heron. Rhythm And Poetry (RAP).

"Language is a Virus" Laurie Anderson. "And there was a beautiful view, that nobody could see..."

"Big North Lights" Martin Stephenson. From Salutation Road, a big warm hug of an album.

"Real and Defined Androgens" Annette Peacock whispers in your ear. Bruford provides the rhythm.

"Diamond Hard Blue Apples of the Moon" The Nice Autumn 67 - Spring 68. A young Keith Emerson. Makes me happy!

"Funk #49" The James Gang. Joe Walsh stoops to playing the Howard Stern show. Legend!

"Deowarfe" Mulu, from Smiles like a Shark. Great song from the duo.

"Strange" Wire. Pink Flag. That filthy guitar. "Joey's nervous and the lights are bright."

"Jennifer" Faust, from Faust IV. Expanding my teenage musical senses. "Yellow jokes come out of your mind."

"The Sad Skinhead" Faust. A musical frolic. Love it.

"Lauft... Heisst Das Es Lauft Oder Es Kommt Bald..Lauft" More from this remarkable album.

"10:15 on a Saturday Night" The Cure. "...and I'm sitting in the kitchen sink..."

"Cousin Dupree" Steely Dan. The musical equivalent of reading Nabokov's Lolita, compelling but distinctly uncomfortable.

"Firth of Fifth" Genesis. Has there ever been a better piano intro?

"Tomorrow's People" MacDonald & Giles. I've still got the vinyl. Michael Giles' wonderful rattly drums. 1970 was great!

"Accidents Will Happen" Elvis Costello. A squeaky-voice, a jangly guitar, and a string-machine - it works.

"Across the Universe" The Beatles. From "Let it Be". Pools of sorrow, waves of joy, are drifting through my opened mind.

"I Don't Wanna Talk About It Now" Emmylou Harris. From her best album by a country mile. (See what I did there).

"Ghost in this House" Alison Krauss. Her angelic take of a traditional tear-jerker about a widow living alone.

"No Mermaid" Sinead Lohan. Cool Irish stuff—was hard to get over here, now she's on Youtube.

"Coisich A Ruin" Capercaillie. Track one on the wonderful "Get Out" CD

"Destiny" Sia - Live. Talented but troubled Aussie composer-performer with mesmerising unique vocals.

"What a Man" 1968 Linda Lyndell. This blockbuster song has an interesting history. Bouncy and tight.

"The Sea" Morcheeba. Live. The mesmerising Skye Edwards caresses you with that voice.

"Unfinished Sympathy" Massive Attack. The centerpiece of "Blue Lines" - genre-defining trip-hop.

"At the River" Groove Armada. Skip all the silly extended versions, this is the one you want.

"Little Fluffy Clouds" The Orb. Music that has been "assembled" but none the worse for that.

"Water from a Vine Leaf" William Orbit from Strange Cargo III. 7 sublime layered minutes.

"Ambient 1: Music for Airports" Eno. 1978, the birth of ambient. Slow, relaxing, loops in loops.

"Untitled" Sigur Ros. 100% tear-stained comments on Youtube. Touches something deep in many.

"Home" Zero 7 with Tina Dico. Gorgeous vocals, laid-back song-writing.

"Waiting Line" Zero 7 live with Sophie Barker. From their must-have album "Simple Things".

"What Your Soul Sings" Massive Attack. Atmospheric, bassy, Sinead's breathy vocals. From the superb "100th Window."

"Cherry Blossom Girl" Air. Bags of character from our favourite Parisiennes.

"Gimme Your Love" Morcheeba. "Close the door, turn the light off, switch your mind off, make it right for me..."

"Kiasmos" Kiasmos. Album. Didn't expect to be putting house music on here. Deliciously ambient. Give it a spare hour.

"Into the Paradise" William Orbit. In his signature style.

"Somersault" Zero 7 & Sia. Trip-hop classic but Sia gives the jingle its edge.

"Audiophile Jazz 2018" Nice. And, as you would expect, beautifully recorded.

"Audiophile Test System Vol. 4" Opeth, and others, but always that audiophile crispness.

"NBR High End Sound Test" An hour of music curated to make your hifi sound amazing!

"NBR High End Sound Test" Another 50m of such music.

"Hi Res Music & Deep Bass" Black Dog ... audiophile style. And more.

"Best Audiophile Voices 2019" Allan Taylor, beloved of audiophiles. And more.

"Audiophile Golden Vocal" Covers of some very familiar stuff. Audiophile style.

"Hallelujah" HAIM. A sweet final soundtrack. Peace forever to our beautiful beautiful Emily.

"Creep" Bardcore version. I'm grinning with delight all the way through.

"All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit" A young, raw, Half Man Half Biscuit. Just wonderful!

"Take the Skinheads Bowling" Camper van Beethoven. "...last night there were skinheads on my lawn..."