Hey Kafke, everyone is kinda asking you "Well, what do you like?" so maybe some more music can be recommended to you. There is lots of very good stuff out there, but you have to listen with different ears sometimes.

The context argument newgreen spoke of is an important one. You are not sitting there listening to music unseated from history or without any personal context. The preferences of your relatives and the music they exposed you too have provided you with something to base your preferences off of, as you stated yourself. Also, there's been plenty of artists that I now adore that I used to not enjoy at all, because something from their catalog finally just struck me at the right place/time and their other work began to make sense.

Also, Meriadoc recommended Sufjan Steven, and I would consider that a very good idea, but his Illinois album would be a better primer, imo.

Bjork is also a very good recommendation, she is an extremely varied artist and I think can appeal to your sensibilities you previously mentioned, ie, "fusion" styles or some juxtaposed form.