Indie Electronic
Located in 2 routes
Indie Electronic is alternative pop and rock built around electronic production: synths, samplers, drum machines, looped vocals, soft house pulses, and laptop textures. It overlaps with indie dance, indietronica, synthpop, chillwave, and electro-pop, but the identifying trait is independent/alternative songwriting inside electronic arrangements. It can be clubby, dreamy, quirky, or festival-sized.
History
The sound grew from 1990s indietronica, electroclash, DFA, French and Australian indie-dance labels, and the cheap laptop production tools of the 2000s. Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, The Postal Service, M83, MGMT, Passion Pit, Metronomy, Cut Copy, Phoenix, Caribou, Yeasayer, and Grimes brought electronic production deeper into indie culture. Streaming later made the category broad, but it remains useful for music that is electronic in texture and alternative in audience.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Pitchfork indie-electronic reviews
- DFA/LCD histories
- bloghouse and indietronica retrospectives
- Discogs release listings