I’ve got a problem, and I’m turning to you, citizens of the Slog, to help me solve it: I need more music to write to.

By “music to write to,” I mean instrumental (or primarily instrumental) music that creates a reasonably smooth aural backdrop without dying of stasis or general gauzy sentiment (i.e. no Windham Hill or anything Enya-flavored.) By “smooth,” I don’t mean soft—two of my long-standing writing-music faves are those noisy pillars of ’90s audio art, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing…. (However, Shadow’s The Private Press is too jumpy and MVB’s Isn’t Anything too wordy to work properly for writing.)

After playing Loveless and Endtroducing.. into the ground (where I still love each of them mightily), I started venturing off into the world of jazz, eventually finding a handful of records that I’ve since played as relentlessly as the My Bloody Valentine and DJ Shadow: Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way and Jack Johnson (only the second half’s good for writing), Duke Ellington & John Coltrane, about six different Thelonious Monk records (including but not limited to Criss Cross, Monk’s Dream, Underground, and that newly discovered live-with-Coltrane-at-Carnegie-Hall disc). But for every one jazz record that fits my writing-music criteria, I find eight that don’t (but that I still love in my non-writing life): Ornette Coleman is too demanding, and all the early stuff—Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong and young Duke Ellington—is too diverting.

Most recently, I found the wonderful world of Steve Reich, via Music for 18 Musicians and a career-spanning mix made for me by Stranger tech lord/acclaimed techno DJ Brian G. This shit is perfect for writing, and it’s what got me thinking about all the rest of the great music-for-writing out there I’ve never heard of.

So help me out. Boss me around. Clearly, techno is the great unexplored world, but it’s iffy as far as writing goes. The scant bit of techno I’ve paid attention to has either been too spazzy and frantic (Spring Heel Jack), or too entrancing and cinematic (Charles Mudede’s beloved Burial) to allow me to focus on work.

Those who have ideas of stuff for me to check out, let me know over at Line Out.