So you’re that kinda writer who has to have a little music in the background. To you silence is as scary and troublesome as a blank page. You’ve listened to classical music, jazz, film and video game scores, anything that fills the quiet but doesn’t seize your attention (Typically this means no lyrics). But of late… it’s all getting a bit familiar, a bit route one.

Well friend, I’m here to help. What follows is a collection of somewhat obscure background music YouTube’s algorithm has gifted me in the last couple months. Don’t thank me. Just write.

WHEN YOU WANT TO FEEL LIKE YOU LIVE IN AN URBANISED WATERY ABYSS RULED BY GALLIC SYNTHESISERS: L’UNIVERSE DE LA MER BY DOMINIQUE GUIOT

Dominique Guiot has long been overshadowed by fellow French musician Jean Michel Jarre and that’s a damn shame. This is a delightful piece of plippy-plappy-woosh-woosh electronica. Unlike a lot of concept albums it genuinely sticks to its musical theme. You’ll feel as if you’re typing at the bottom of your local public swimming pool after opening hours.

WHEN YOU WANT TO SIT BY A FIRE IN A HUNGARIAN FOREST AND BE SERENADED BY GUITAR-TWIDDLING TREE SPIRITS: DREAMS BY GABOR SZABO

‘Third stream music’, so Wikipedia tells me, is when classical and jazz intersect. Szabo’s twist on that notion is in making the classical part classical Hungarian folk. Or maybe that’s the jazz part. Hard to say. Whatever, Dreams makes you want to ride a covered wagon through the mountains of your own prose.

WHEN YOU WISH YOU WERE THE MAIN CHARACTER IN A BLEAK SPY SERIES ON BBC 2 BACK IN 1977: TRANQUILITY BY DUTCH TREAT

I haven’t a freaking clue who Dutch Treat are. Information is scanty. I like to think they were a bunch of jaded session musicians who somehow got some free time in a studio, rolled up some cigarettes and just got on with it. From the opening notes of the first track, En Vitesse, you want to walk through grey empty streets with a suitcase as the movie title, probably something like The Munich Dossier, appears in yellow text above you.

WHEN YOU WANT TO BE A MAN WHOSE APARTMENT SMELLS OF RICH MAHOGANY AND YOUR JACUZZI HAS AN INBUILT TELEVISION: A VIRGEM DE SAINT TROPEZ BY HARETON SALVANINI

I won’t beat about the bush, this album was for some European soft porn flick (In fact it may have been realised in the UK as Beat About The Bush for all I know). This is the only album on my list to have a song with lyrics, the opening track, but something about its cheesiness sets your mental tone as you begin to write. A Virgem De Saint Tropez gets my fingers going, though probably not in the way as the movie’s target audience.