Extenuating Circumstances is a weblog by Dan Hon

Music to calm minds by

I put out a general distress call on Twitter the other day: “Recommendations for music that will calm the mind?”

In the interests of sharing a beneficial resource, I hereby present my Twitter follower’s Music To Calm Minds By (not available in the shops, etc.):

• Bach (in general, and also specifically oboe concertos and the Brandenburg concertos)
• Boards of Canada
• Air
• KLF - Chillout
• The Blade Runner Soundtrack
• Penguin Cafe Orchestra
• Morcheeba
• Brian Eno - Music for Airports/Films
• Philip Glass solo piano
• Anything on Last.fm radio tagged “calm“
• David Axelrod
• Halcyon On and On
• Autechre’s Flutter33
• LC1
• Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine
• The Field, From Here We Go Sublime
• The Neck
• the Pop Ambient series on Kompakt
• Napalm Death
• Gavin Bryars
• Glenn Gould playing Bach (Goldberg or Well Tempered Clavier)
• Sigur Ros
• Astrud Gilberto
• Iron and Wine
• Wilco
• Kings of Convenience
• Nouvelle Vague

A few others worthy of consideration:

Destiny and In the Waiting Line-Zero 7

Glory Box and Sour Times-Portishead

Spooky-Dusty Springfield

Cry Me a River-Julie London

and when your looking to turn the corner and ease back into work mode try Fool’s Gold by The Stone Roses

To which I’d also add:

Arvo Part
Stars of the Lid
Telegraphs in Negative
Johann Johannsson
Max Richter
Susuma Yakota

Find all these and more at my lastfm stream!