I happen to talk a lot about music and I end up recommending a lot albums to my friends. They don’t end up liking most of the songs/albums I recommend. I don’t think this is because my taste is bad. Instead, I think this is the case since people are not used to listening weirder music.

So I decided to list some albums which I like and I think are a good introduction to non-standard music without being too weird :) I have listed some more albums in the last paragraph of each section. If you like any of the albums, you can come back to find some other albums you might like.

Nurture - Porter Robinson #

Nurture is a glitchy, sometimes noisy electropop album with an abundance of acoustic textures to go with it. It contains songs like “Wind Tempos” and “Dullscythe”, which are definitely on the weirder end of the spectrum. But the introduction to the album is relatively gentle with songs like “Look at the Sky” and “Get your Wish”. I think there is enough variety in the album that you will find at least something you like - there are dance songs like “Musician” as well as a very minimal, calm song like “Blossom”.

If you liked the electropop parts of the album, you might like Porter’s earlier record Worlds. If you liked the glitchy parts, you might like Vespertine by Björk. If you liked the noisy acoustic bits you might like Glow pt. 2 by The Microphones and if you liked the folky bits you might like Kagayaki by Masakatsu Takagi.

Black Sands - Bonobo #

Black Sands is a downtempo, groovy album with some jazzy bits which has, in my opinion, the best intro to any album “Prelude”, which then seamlessly transitions into the much more electronic song “Kiara” followed by songs like “El Toro” and “1009” which still keep the groove with layered drum sounds. “The Keeper” changes things up as a less busy song with a jazzy flavour which is continued for the rest of the album.

If you liked the more electronic/downtempo first part of the album, you might like Music Has the Right to Children by Boards of Canada. You might also like Rounds by Four Tet which is a more folky downtempo album. If you liked the more jazzier parts towards the end, you might like Gift from the Trees by Mammal Hands and Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & London Symphony Orchestra.

Green - Hiroshi Yoshimura #

Green is beautiful synth ambient album. Ambient music might be the most foreign of all the genres I have mentioned in this blog. Unlike traditional music, the focus of ambient music is on textures and the feelings the sounds generates. While there are some ambient albums which completely forgo rhythm, I chose to include Green since the songs in it instead have a very strong rhythmic backbone which creates a hypnotic sound.

If you liked the general feeling of listening to ambient, there is a lot of variety to explore. Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 by Aphex Twin and Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno are classics. Async by Ryuichi Sakamoto is a much newer but great ambient album.