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    Favourite Instrumentals

    I was just compiling some music for a soon-to-be-had dinner party, and I decided to try and concentrate on non-vocal tracks. It's harder than I thought; even some of the songs I thought were instrumentals have a voice or two in there. I've kept away deliberately from bands that don't normally have vocals, so that's Mogwai out. I've got:

    Oscillate Wildly - Smiths
    Theme For Great Cities - Simple Minds
    Butter The Soul - Cornershop
    Bride of Theme From Blinking Lights - Eels
    Incubation - Joy Division
    The Wizard Turns On... - The Flaming Lips
    Egyptian Reggae - Jonathan Richman

    The way it's going, it's going to be a fairly short dinner do. Any suggestions?

    #2
    Favourite Instrumentals

    Simple Minds - Somebody Up There Likes Me

    Bob Dylan - Main Theme from Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

    Phoenix - Love Like a Sunset Part 1

    Teenage Fanclub - Is This Music?

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      #3
      Favourite Instrumentals

      Two favourites of mine :

      The Beach Boys - Let's Go Away For a While

      Chic - São Paulo

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        #4
        Favourite Instrumentals

        Time is Tight - Booker T & the MGs (The Clash's version is damned good too.)

        Most of B & MGs are great instrumentals.

        I'd think there would be a load of responses for this thread.

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          #5
          Favourite Instrumentals

          Harry J Allstars — Liquidator
          Anything by Booker T & the MGs — Time is Tight, Green Onions, Soul Limbo, Hamg 'em High
          Double Barrel (mostly) — Dave & Ansill Collins

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            #6
            Favourite Instrumentals

            Booker T released a solo album a few years back called Potato Hole. The final track, "Space City", is for me the best thing he or the band has ever done.

            Do you want some jazz thrown in?

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              #7
              Favourite Instrumentals

              Early 60s was the classic era.

              A few to be going on with:

              Tuff — Ace Cannon

              Harlem Nocturne — The Viscounts

              Pad — Fleet and Freddy

              To-Bango — The 4-El Moroccos

              Bubbles in the Tar — The Piltdown Men

              In the Hall of the Mountain King — Nero and the Gladiators

              The Frightened City — The Shadows

              The Cruel Sea — The Dakotas

              Peppermint Fink — The Madmen of Note

              Tough Chick — The Rockbusters

              Bustin' Surfboards — The Tornadoes (the US ones, not the Joe Meek ones)

              Sam's Drag — Lafayette Thomas

              Dog Patch Creeper — The Velveteens

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                #8
                Favourite Instrumentals

                To rock things up a bit you can chuck in Coast To Coast by the Scorpions and La Villa Strangiato by Rush.

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                  #9
                  Favourite Instrumentals

                  I rather like Lightning Song by Queens of the Stone Age.

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                    #10
                    Favourite Instrumentals

                    The Winstons - Amen Brother

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                      #11
                      Favourite Instrumentals

                      The Etcetera Stroll - The Monochrome Set

                      No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In - The T-Bones

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                        #12
                        Favourite Instrumentals

                        Edit: already mentioned.

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                          #13
                          Favourite Instrumentals

                          Guns of Navarone.

                          Are we having Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag, or is that too 80s?

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                            #14
                            Favourite Instrumentals

                            Good calls, both. In fact, old-school ska has a million great instrumentals:

                            Eastern Standard Time

                            The Selecter

                            (er,not that Pigbag is ska, like).

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                              #15
                              Favourite Instrumentals

                              Air, La Femme D'Argent
                              Ladytron, Mu-Tron
                              New Fast Automatic Daffodils, Beautiful
                              Lowlife, The Betting and Gaming Act of 1964
                              Ultravox, Astradyne

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                                #16
                                Favourite Instrumentals

                                Any Meters really but especially Cissy Strut

                                Wipeout - The Surfaris

                                Pipeline - The Chantays

                                Misirlou - Dick Dale

                                Comanche - The Revels

                                Surf Rider - The Lively Ones

                                Instro - Motorhead

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                                  #17
                                  Favourite Instrumentals

                                  Many of those already named, plus:

                                  Ramsey Lewis Trio - Wade in the Water
                                  S. Piliso & his Super 7 - Kuya Hanjwa
                                  The Monks - Blockhead

                                  That's all I can think of at the moment. Loads of African folk music would do I'd say. But I don't know enough about it.

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                                    #18
                                    Favourite Instrumentals

                                    John Scofield does an interesting cover of "Cissy Strut". And Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors". But I'm quite partial to his "Hit the Road Jack" and "Georgia on My Mind", from his That's What I Say album of Brother Ray covers.

                                    Anyone here for Weather Report's "Birdland"? Or "Rock That!" by Earth, Wind & Fire? "Peaches en Regalia" by Frank Zappa? Reuben Wilson, testifying with "Sexual Healing"? Kind of Blue? Marcin Wasilewski?

                                    And Bill Frisell, who is wonderful.

                                    Peter Frampton did a whole album of instrumentals quite recently, and won a Grammy for it.

                                    Good night.

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                                      #19
                                      Favourite Instrumentals

                                      Speed of Life - David Bowie

                                      Late for the Train - Buzzcocks

                                      Machine Gun - The Commodores

                                      And with 'a voice or two'

                                      69 Police - David Holmes

                                      Overture from 'I am Curious, Orange' - The Fall

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                                        #20
                                        Favourite Instrumentals

                                        Focus - Sylvia

                                        EDIT - contains yodelling

                                        Booker T & the MGs - Green Onions (this may have been mentioned before)

                                        Jethro Tull - Bouree

                                        Allman Brothers Band - Les Brers in A Minor

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                                          #21
                                          Favourite Instrumentals

                                          I'll second (or third or fourth or fifth) the suggestions for Booker T. & the M.G.'s, The Meters, and first-wave ska (especially Lynn Taitt and The Jets), and add:

                                          "Quiet Village," Martin Denny
                                          "Kite High," Freescha
                                          "Dust Bowl," The Magnetic Fields
                                          And the Gymnopédies by Erik Satie, who practically invented ambient music. He called it "furniture music."

                                          Movie soundtracks are good for this, too. I especially like Elmer Bernstein's music for The World of Henry Orient and Nino Rota's music for Juliet of the Spirits.

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                                            #22
                                            Favourite Instrumentals

                                            Zed Nkabinde - Inkonjane Jive.

                                            Can't find it on YouTube. But it's brilliant in a simple way. Anybody who doesn't want to dance to it, doesn't want to dance. It's on some compilation of township music.

                                            In general, I think we need G-man to thread.

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                                              #23
                                              Favourite Instrumentals

                                              Pipeline - The Chantays
                                              "Quiet Village," Martin Denny
                                              Nino Rota's music for Juliet of the Spirits
                                              OK, people are starting to cheat a bit here. Of course there are genres -- Surf, Exotica, (yes-i'm-calling-Nino-Rota-a-genre), Ambient, &c. -- that don't tend to have many vocals.

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                                                #24
                                                Favourite Instrumentals

                                                Air - Jai dormi sous l'eau
                                                Lilental - wattwurm
                                                Jacno - triangle
                                                Bowie - art decade
                                                Kraftwerk - franz schubert
                                                St etienne - Chaos in the gym (my fave track from them)
                                                Broadcast - Hammer without a master
                                                Music Emporium - Winds have changed (instrumental)
                                                C.A.Quintet - Trip thru hell pt.1
                                                The Maze - Dejected soul (instr.)
                                                The Beatles - flying
                                                Damon Albarn - Closet Romantic (close enough)
                                                Los Mac's (chilean psych-pop) - El evangelio de la gente sola
                                                Ithaca - Journey (ii)
                                                Nouvelle Frontiere (quebec proggy psych) - sans legende
                                                Troyka - early morning (great rare psych Alberta)
                                                Ultimate spinach - 5th horseman of the apocalypse
                                                Chocolate Watchband - Dark side of the mushroom
                                                Ananda Shankar - Jumpin Jack Flash
                                                Pussy - Comets
                                                serge Gainsbourg - Premiere blessure
                                                Pink Floyd - Massed gadgets of hercules (peel sessions)
                                                Dungen - Det du Tänker Idag Är du I Morgon

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                                                  #25
                                                  Favourite Instrumentals

                                                  Is that cheating? I didn't realize we were confined to a genre. I just listed the kind of thing I put on at dinner parties and such. (Martin Denny is excellent Sunday morning reading the paper and drinking coffee music, too.) Anyway, it's all, like, music, man. Stop harshing my mellow, alyx!

                                                  Another one I forgot, but that we've talked about on other threads:

                                                  The Budos Band

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