[mark_h]

My go-to artist is Zoe Keating (layered cello, and on bandcamp as an added bonus: http://music.zoekeating.com/). She's also quite interesting to follow: she's heavily into twitter, and is quite open about her profits, dealings with labels, etc.

Otherwise though, vocal-less trance is usually pretty effective. I love all the recommendations these threads bring up -- thanks everyone!

[damncabbage]

This is wonderful; thank you for the link. Just bought the download. :)

I've recently been hooked on 41 Strings, a short vocal-less composition by Nick Zinner (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). He's performed it live in a bunch of places, but it's available for download here: http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/download-nick-zinners...

[mark_h]

I just got around to checking that out; thanks!

[spacemanaki]

Here's a Radiolab segment about her, and they use some of her music in their shows:

http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2008/aug/25/quan...

[maular]

Wow, she's great. Thanks for the recommendation!

[meow]

Wow, all her tracks are so soul soothing...