In no particular order (and allowing for inevitable omissions)......
Ravel, Scriabin, Debussy, David Bowie, Comus, Kate Bush, Pentangle, Stereolab, Miles, Davis, Syd Barret/early Pink Floyd, Third Ear Band, Siouxsie & The Banshees, King Crimson, Mark Hollis, Holst, Prokofiev, Messiaen, JS Bach, Stravinsky, Satie, David Sylvian, Cocteau Twins, Talk Talk, Funkadelic, Nick Drake, Bartok, Scelsi, The Slits, Japan, Jacques Brel, O'rang, Joy Division, Lonnie Liston Smith, Astrud Gilberto, Alice Coltrane, Can, Killing Joke, Herbie Hancock, Neu!, The Cure, Roy Ayers, Scott Walker, Vaughn Williams, Public Image ltd, Henry Cow, Faure, John Barry, John Fahey, John Coltrane, John McGeoch, John Renbourn, Johnny Marr, Robert Fripp, Forest, Echo & The Bunnymen, Marc Almond, Kraftwerk, Delius, Marvin Gaye, David Munroe, Pere Ubu, Mr Bungle, Grace Jones, King Tubby, Lully
Claude Lorraine, Austin Osman Spare, Gustav Moreau, Poussin, Titian, Ferdinand Knopff, Arnold Bocklin, Georgio DeChirico, JK Huysmans, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Carson McCullors, Anthony Burgess, Charles Baudelaire, James Joyce
Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956)
English Artist, writer and occultist who devised a wholly unique style of drawing and painting, mixing magic, automatic drawing/writing, Sigilization with exceptional draughtsmanship and vision. Spare is something of an enigma, conspicuously absent from most anthological assessments of, and publications concerning, Art History. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to unearth any awareness of him or his work outside of occult enthusiasts and, where one might at least hope to find a mention of him, perhaps in regards to the Pre- Raphealites or proponents of the ensuing English crafts movement (especially GF Watts who, stylistically at least, anticipated Spare), one would again draw a blank. This, in many ways reflects the man and artist himself, who retreated from the "Art" world (and it's attendant pretences and politics) to privacy and poverty in South London, a shabby flat he shared with numerous cats, and surrounding pubs where he depicted the working class habitues as Satyrs and otherworldly entities. Immensely gifted, Spare was granted a scholarship for the Royal Academy of Art at just sixteen and, in 1907, had his first major exhibition at London's Bruton Gallery. Thereafter he became somewhat feted by London's avant garde and was to come into contact with Aleister Crowley. Their's was, however, a fraught friendship, with Spare very much going his own way, publishing his seminal "Book Of Pleasure" which, albeit implicitely, dismisses Crowley and ceremonial magic. After serving as a medical orderly in WW1, Spare was largely disillusioned with the society he returned to, noting "Lots of things had changed. I found it very difficult to keep going on with what I had been doing. That pushed me into the abstract world - and there I have more or less remained". Such alienation and rage was expressed in his "Anathema of Zos - Sermon To The Hypocrites", published in 1927.It is alleged that in 1936, Spare declined an invitation to paint Adolf Hitler's portrait, and there are various anecdotal accounts of his magical abilities. Regardless, his Artistic work in itself warrants recognition for its technical mastery and imaginative fecundity, and perhaps it is fitting that he remains a shrouded, unaffiliated mystery.
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Russian Composer and mystic. His music is generally considered to straddle the Late/Post Romantic and early Modern periods. Scriabin was apparently a Synesthesiast, and sought to combine colour and sound, notably in his last Orchestral Work, Prometheus; Poem Of Fire which has a part for a "clavier à lumières" (keyboard with lights)that was meant to bathe the audience in colours that corresponded to the music. Scriabin was later to conceive of the idea for a mammoth work ("The Mysterium") that would take place over seven days in a specially constructed temple in the Himalayas, include not just all mankind, but all living creatures (Scriabin's 10th Piano Sonata was dedicated to insects, which he touchingly described as "the sun's kisses")and lead to the end of the world and dawning of a new age, one ihabited by "Nobler Beings". Inaugerated by the tolling of bells suspended from clouds, "The Mysterium" would combine all senses as well as artforms, with melodies dissolving into scents, choreographed glances, touch- textures relating to harmony and so on. Of his "Mysterium" Scriabin said "There will not be a single spectator. All will be participants. The work requires special people, special artists and a completely new culture. The cast of performers includes an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument with visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense, and rhythmic textural articulation. The cathedral in which it will take place will not be of one single type of stone but will continually change with the atmosphere and motion of the Mysterium. This will be done with the aid of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours."
Sadly Scriabin died before completing anything other than sketches of "The Mysterium", which may have been enough to end the world, albeit for him alone. Therein he was largely dismissed as a crankish meglomaniac and embodiment of the worst, most bloated excesses of Romanticism, especially by exponents of the intellectually driven, "logically" schematic Modernism that followed in his wake. However, for those who seek the Elemental, the glorious, the mysterious, the soaringly and unselfconsciously inspired, Scriabin's music is, as Henry Miller described it, "A bath of ice, cocaine and rainbows".