That's cool, Miso. All those things seem like music I could enjoy listening to.
I'm a musician as well, been playing guitar since I was 10/11 (and later additional instruments, like drums) and always had music in my life, also in school and studies until 2 years ago.
Mats&Morgan band
The first band I'll list came to me when I was in high school, actually Faden from JK2 sent me a link once, and it had an unspeakable impact on me. After listening a couple of times to Ta Ned Trasan, from a recording that happened on Swedish television, it felt like I had discovered something divine, I simply was mindblown that music could sound like this. It opened me up to a bigger world, and with enough concentration, I can still channel back those memories of just being.. yeah, totally reborn by what I heard. Here's the particular song, I also posted this in the bottom of my introduction when this forum started up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw-CnRt9xb4
Here's another of their performances. People often say it sounds like "video game music" when they hear this band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIcPHLoV4oU
Deerhoof
Something I listen a lot to, a band with incredible musicians and a japanese girl who sings and plays bass that started playing in the band and went on tour with them within a week she came to USA. I think she had no prior band/instrumental experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV_kfm0Sw8k
(Two of my personal favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL6x3EzEKbg and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHcbhpLxuHA)
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Another band I discovered in high school. Me and a friend put on one of these records while at his house, just listening to stuff while playing FIFA, and it had a BIG impact on me, a bit like Mats&Morgan did. How I would describe the band would be.. it's like the most incredible riffs and sounds you've heard, eventually with reckless almost childlike soloing on top, from some super musicians like John McLaughlin, and drummer Billy Cobham.
My first encounter with the band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ofh_S52Uks
(One song that has been very important to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDAJZHu1UDI)
Weather Report
Listened a lot to these, and little comes close to lifting my spirits as much.
Such a cool band. This song has one of the coolest riffs ever (1:50 etc):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVhw2NCxqaE
Univers Zero
This is sick. I had never heard music been treated the same way. The rhythms and riffs are some of the coolest I can think of. Such attitude, with such instruments. Probably my first encounter with them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NHxhKX1LCk
King Crimson
Listening through Larks' Tongues in Aspic album from the start to the end is an experience that I can go for when I have nothing to distract me. The transition from the chaos to the last song ("Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part II") always gets me like a shot of adrenaline (not that I've tried that). That song in particular reminds me of when I was younger and mapping a lot, and I have associations to one old (silly) map called house_gnu both with this song, and another one called 'Red'.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gb3wi
Shining
A Norwegian band that started out as an acoustic jazz quartet, and ended up playing some unique kind of style of intense reckless metal/prog with saxophone, and it's really quite a drastic change. I really liked their first acoustic albums, especially this track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ8KOo3u9WE
I also put one of their tracks in a
JK2 frag video I did.
However, I really like them also after they changed their style and started screaming and going insane, and been listening through 'Blackjazz' a
lot of times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvwXYDw9ahc