Three 24-hour exams means a lot of writing music. (Plus, I somehow managed to set things up so I’m revising a conference paper right now.) Some summer infrastructure revisions resulted in my work music being spread over three iTunes directories on two Macs and a PC, and I’m working on getting it all in one place again.

But anyway, the bleg. Can anyone recommend music, pretty-please? I generally write best to music without words, although there are a few bands that work well for me (Mummydogs, early Concrete Blonde plus Mojave, Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, and Boss Hog’s Whiteout, which probably reveals something about me right there. Not sure exactly what, though.) Here’s what I’ve got so far, which is a combination of my own collection, some stuff I want to download, and some things folks recommended to Madeline when she was preparing:

Dick Dale (various)
Tom Verlaine - Warm and Cool
Frank Zappa - Guitar and Francesco Zappa
Vince Guaraldi (various)
Rachel Portman - the Human Stain soundtrack
Philip Glass
The Crouching Tiger soundtrack, minus the last two tracks
The English Patient soundtrack
Sonny Rollins - Skylark and Someone to Watch Over Me
Coltrane (various)
Thelonious Monk (various)
Ravi Shankar - Bangla Dhun
Bo Diddly - Aztec
The Brandenburg Concertos
Tchaikovsky Concertos conducted by Arthur Rubenstein
Bach Cello Suites by The Casals
Dead Can Dance (various)
Mozart - Symphony 39 and 41

What else do I need?