Indie electronic more widely known as indietronica is the fusion of electronic music with indie (independent) music. Indie music is made by independent artists not beholden to record labels and have most if not all creative control over their music. Most often the kind of indie music fused with electronic music is indie rock or indie pop. On the electronic side, genres that show up are often IDM and glitch. This genre is a broad music classification and incorporates many disparate-sounding artists and projects.
History[]
The style emerged during the 90s but really came into form after the 90s alternative dance scene declined. Unlike alternative dance, indietronica is not meant to be danced to and typically uses an approach that uses electronic instruments to create more of an atmospheric or emotional feeling to the song. During its formative years, the scene was underground but in the 2000s some much more famous artists like Bjork and Radiohead took influences from it. By the late 2000s artists like MGMT and Animal Collective were creating music that was selling on par with pop acts of their time. Somewhat later chillwave also came into popularity as a subgenre of the style which focuses on even more dream-like textures and a heavier use of reverb.
Characteristics[]
Despite indietronica's broadness there still is a sort of sound that unites these artists in that the music is emotive, melancholic, dream-like, and if vocals are included are often sung in a passive and lackadaisical way. The instrumentation relies much more on analog synthesizers than other genres of the 2000s and onwards. This gives the music an almost retro or nostalgic feel in some cases.
Resorces[]
- Wikipedia article subsection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_music#Indie_electronic
- RYM listing https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/indietronica/
- RYM box set listing https://rateyourmusic.com/list/TheScientist/rym-ultimate-box-set-indietronica/