Music to bake to

Enjoying a cup of coffee in Ikea showroom... Like a boss

Since it seems I won't be baking anytime soon, I decided to share this thing of mine. Many will agree that baking is pretty awesome; it is actually quite epic, so why not listening to epic music while doing epic stuff? While my mum usually turn on radio and listen to traditional Czech songs sung by local folk groups or something (not very interesting), I like to play something that invokes of something great being made.

I either play something from my library or get last.fm to play me a customized radio based of tags. Seriously, you cannot go wrong with listening to a post-rock radio while baking, it usually invokes just the right atmosphere, however not every post-rock band makes glorious epic sound you'd expect them and they just make background ambient noise. How improper! :)

So I'll share couple of tracks that I think set the mood worthy of epic baking. Perhaps you'll find something you like and use it when it's time for feeling monumental.



Onwards We March by Joy Wants Eternity (a kinda typical name for a post-rock band) has everything I love about post-rock: deep rich sound, underlying noise, slow gradation until the explosive climax (the epitome of epicness) and soothing finish. To be honest, about 80% of post-rock tracks are build like this but Onwards We March does it probably the best of the bunch. Joy Wants Eternity's albums are great and while they might not be usually memorable for single tracks, they work as a whole perfectly.

Shadow of the Colossus Soundtrack (called Roar of the Earth actually) is pretty much the best album to play and feel almighty! The calm exploration themes are mixed with orchestral battle themes in such a way that your cake or cookies simply must be as epic as the colossi in the game.


Vangelis makes a special kind of music... It's... well, it is instantly recognizable. Blade Runner's soundtrack is one of his best albums in my opinion and while not exactly epic, it is very heavy and serious for serious business that baking is.


I found this track of a compilation album and it became my favourite track from it. This is by no means post-rock... more like psychill but its structure is very similar to the mentioned Onwards We March (without the explosion though) - slow build-up for almost half of the track, then pretty nice beat, chimes and back to the enhanced theme from the beginning. My favourite part is somewhere around 6:20, it just sounds so right! Anyway, Chronos is a russian dude who makes pretty good dub, chill, ambient, whatever.


I cannot post this without mentioning Sigur Rós. They were the entry band to post-rock for me and while I don't listen to them as much as I used to, they're still okay. My dad likened their music to the sound circular saw makes when it goes through wood but I suppose it is a matter of taste (I don't like his beat-rock stuff) :)


Now, Balmorhea is cool. Despite the fact that it's total hipster music, I enjoy it a lot and even though their music does not exactly invoke the feeling of epicness, Settler is a great song about exploration of the unknown, pushing frontiers and colonizing the land that would much later become the United States of America. If that doesn't make you picture wide horizon, then I don't know what does. And anyway, the music fits the time when cookies have to cool off and you have to wash everything.


And I saved this Bollywood colourful nonsense at the end. It's great to eat the cookies to.