'Call of the Valley'

The greatest album of classical Indian music and you might not be able to find better mood music. I love finding instrumental albums like these to play as almost a score. Working, messing around the house or just in need of something that can provide some sort of tempo without interrupting with wild crescendoes, vocals or the typical ebb and flow of a traditional pop song.

Call of the Valley was a 1967 collaboration by famed Indian instrumentalists Hariprasad Chaurasia, Brij Bhushan Kabra and Shivkumar Sharma. None of them played the sitar or tabla as you might expect.

In fact, Kabra is a guitar player and Chaurasia plays a flute. It opened Indian music up to the international audience championed also by the usual suspects, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan.

It's actually a concept album as it follows a shepherd throughout his day in the Kashmir.

It also gets major props for a pretty cool album cover, too. The Indians generally do things a little cooler than most.