I personally have to listen to music that is super-familiar when writing or reading. I have to know the music by heart. That can mean anything from David Bowie to U2 to Neil Finn to Enya to Air--I have a lot of choices. New music does not work when I'm trying to do something else. I am too focused on thinking about the music to think about something else. This is true for music with or without vocals, or even if the vocals are in another language I don't know well enough to translate the lyrics (i.e. Japanese).
So sorry, Baraka, I don't have any good recommendations for you.
