Godspeed you! Black Emperor
Edit: Iβm not old, but old enough that I only really remember their first round of albums. No idea what the newer ones are like, sadly. Just never got around to listening.
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Godspeed you! Black Emperor
Edit: Iβm not old, but old enough that I only really remember their first round of albums. No idea what the newer ones are like, sadly. Just never got around to listening.
"God is an astronaut" "Boards of Canada"
Along with Godspeed, those 3 were like my university study mix.
I don't think all these are contemporary but as someone who loves post rock and instrumental music here are some artists that make it into my playlist pretty regularly. Hope this is helpful! The ones near the top I probably listen to more regularly right now but it tends to rotate.
EDIT: got around to checking my library and have a few more.
In hindsight I don't know if a giant list is the most useful thing but it's here if you want it.
This is quite a list, you have good taste.
Tycho, UTAH, Attom, lots more in my instrumental playlist. These are mostly chilled or electronic type genre songs, but I also have a "djentstrumental" playlist if that's your jam, with artists like For Giants, Andromida, Returning We Hear the Larks (a personal favorite), and more.
Love Tycho!
I feel Boards of Canada is similar, but they do pretty frequent vocal samples.
A lot of post-rock bands might be good for you. Usually atmospheric/instrumental music played with typical rock instruments and little to no vocals.
Some of my favorites are Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, El Ten Eleven, and Sigur RΓ³s.
(although Sigur RΓ³s technically features vocals but itβs a language of nonsense sounds the lead singer JΓ³nsi made up called Hopelandic, so itβs instrumental-voice I guess??)
Definitely check out Khruangbin! Great music, very few vocals. They are awesome live and recorded. Hope you enjoy.
LORN
Post rock post rock post rock post rock
Explosions in the Sky
Mogwai
Sigur Ros
The Album Leaf
This Will Destroy You
try these on for size and see if the genre takes you like it took me. I tried to include some stuff that is more traditional rock in form and instrumentation and some that is a bit more experimental in that regard.
God is an astronaut
If these trees could talk
Maybeshewill
Collapse under the empire
Long distance calling
Russian circles
Polyphia is great as was already suggested. If you want to go heavier, try Animals as Leaders. If you want to go jazzier, try Snarky Puppy.
In no particular order:
Ryuichi Sakamoto (particularly Async, and his albums with Alva Noto)
Aphex Twin
Apparat (though he does also feat singers on some albums)
Four Tet
Squarepusher
Γrdrop Wolkenscheidt
MGMT
Sevish
Matt Elliott (very few sung bits)
Paco de LucΓa
Guilhem Desq
Jordi Savall
Ledetraad
Bremer & McCoy
Athletic Progression
Psykovsky
Kettel
Secede
R mccarthy
Sungazer
999999999
Susumu Yokota
Caravan Palace
These do fall into the vg category but it's more edm / retro than "epic orchestral":
Scattle
Chris Christodoulou
Toby Fox
The Toxic Avenger
Jake Kaufman
I enjoy listening to The HU. They are a Mongolian Metal/rock band. Most of their songs have lyrics, but itβs all in Mongolian so I just treat the vocals as another instrument and it may as well be instrumental to me.
The following can be classed as instrumental, post-rock or post-metal:
Apocalyptica. Metal on the cello. They sometimes have s guest vocalist. I like their self-titled album.
Phamie Gow. Pianist and harpist. Maybe too orchestral. I turn to the Beyond the Milky Way album oftenwhen working out studying.
Mary Lattimore. Experimental harpist. I've been enjoying her latest album, West Kensington, with guitarist Paul Sukeena.
Kelly Moran. Experimental pianist Can't recommend her album Ultraviolet enough.
Burial. For some chilled, glitchy dubstep.
The Comet is Coming. For some psych jazz.
Moderat. For some house electronica.
Uboa. For some droney, noisy, doomy metal.
George Clanton. For some synthpop vapourwave. His latest album is great.
Ratatat
Joe Satriani, Jeff Beck, Keith Jarrett.
I'm a metal head, so these will be in a similar vein, though there is techno and more relaxed stuff at the end. Might add links if I remember later:
Chon, Animals as leaders, Polyphia, Plini, Syncatto, Intervals, Meganeko, Broke For Free
A few I can think of while going through my music library:
Some are relaxing and others are loud and fast.
I listen to Ghost Data and Porter Robinson lots. Both are electronic music, but I like them more than Zedd or Madeon because they sound more unique.
Ghost Data's chord progressions are unique but repetitive (I don't know many other artists that have a chord progression or vocal idea like that of "Queen of Knives", so it's unique, but the main chord progression of "Queen of Knives" doesn't change all that much throughout the song, so it's repetitive). I like that there's sonic variety while exploring singular ideas fully, like how the main melody of "Thy Flesh Undone" repeats through different instrumentations.
Porter Robinson stuff is pretty great because it sounds more emotional than most EDM I hear. It can sometimes have words, sometimes not. The Worlds album is more of an ambient and emotional/inspiring twist on EDM; specifically I'm thinking of "Goodbye to a World" and "Lionhearted" as uniquely happy songs.
I give an honorary mention to "Antirrhinum" by MALO because its rhythms are pretty cool and confused me a lot at first. It was entertaining trying to figure them out.
The term for this would be 'instrumental', which I only mention because it might help you find what you want. If you search streaming platforms for '[some genre] instrumental' it might turn up a playlist.
Here's some favourite albums of mine, which are 'ambient' so you might find them terribly boring, but they certainly are instrumental:
Ever heard of a crab rave?
I've heard Crab Rave (and Sandstorm too), but didn't know there was an artist with that name. Any favourite tracks?
how recent is contemporary? how tolerable is EDM? Cuz the first thing that comes to mind is Deadmau5
Badbadnotgood
Rival Consoles
If you like guitar, Tom Anello.
Plini.
plini, an addition to all the rock/metal listed
I can recommend Solar Fields, although they did the Soundtrack to Mirror's Edge, their albums are pretty nice.
Also (but not really contemporary): Casiopea - Japanese Fusion Jazz. Sounds like the soundtrack to Gran Turismo, but still.
Los Bitchos
If These Trees Could Talk. Polyphia. Those are two I like quite a bit. Explosions In the Sky. This Will Destroy You.
I saw you said you like some electronic music, so I'll throw in Prefuse 73 (or really, any of Scott Heren's pseudonyms) and Infected Mushroom. Prefuse 73 has some voice samples but is largely electronic/trip-hop, while Infected Mushroom has a decent split between songs with lyrics and songs without, so I recommend just grabbing an album and picking out what works for you.
Polyphia, Casiopea (Mint Jams album)
Com Truise
I like to listen to synthwave when driving and I can recommend 'Rivera Rivera' and 'Inexdra' as well as 'Cartridge 1987'.
The latter has some great songs that tell a story without any words.
Guts Pie Earshot are one of my favorite bands - just Cello & Drums (except in their first years), for example Butterfly
The Comet Is Coming - for some psychedelic/jazz/rock, Tiny Desk Concert
Space Rock - An Interstellar Traveller's Guide is one of my favorite compilation albums (so not really an artist but a bunch of artists)
Some more space rock: Yuri Gagarin
Die Wilde Jagd have some lyrics, but also many instrumental tracks, likeAusterlitz
When it comes to techno, there is obviously a lot of choice, I like e.g. Ellen Alien Lism