This has come up with a couple of people recently, so I thought I’d make some recommendations. I tend to put a playlist together to get me in the right mood for specific projects, but there are some albums that seem to transcend that and are absolute winners regardless of what I’m doing. These are the ones that help me hit that flow state where I can just get totally absorbed into writing:

The Ipcress File OST – John Barry
Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy OST – Alberto Iglesias
Become Ocean – John Luther Adams
All Melody – Nils Frahm (this is a recent release but it’s already working)
Memoryhouse – Max Richter (pretty much any Max Richter works)
Orphée – Johann Johannsson (also Fordlandia and And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees)
Into The Trees – Zoe Keating
Aventine – Agnes Obel
A Moon Shaped Pool – Radiohead
Elytral – Mary Epworth
Atomic – Mogwai
Cloud Atlas OST – Tom Tykwer

I’m sure I’ve left some out but right now Nils Frahm is on and I’m itching to get back into a script…