Elliott Smith
Elliott Smith is probably my all time favourite musician. His melancholic indie folk moves me deeply. His lyrics have also meant a lot to me in the various phases of my life, which is saying a lot from someone who doesn't normally listen to the lyrics. His tragic suicide ended one of the best musical careers in the world, but fortunately he managed to make a lot of music for all of us to enjoy!
The Decemberists
The Decemberists are another one of my all time favourite bands. Their melodic songs have excellent stories and they really know how to make catchy but classy melodies. The frontman Colin Meloy has excellent banter on the gigs. Their folkish pop songs have evolved over time and on a couple of albums they have even done some music that could be called progressive rock. Excellent band!
Laura Veirs
Again, one of my favourite artists. Laura Veirs' singer-songwriter typed folk rock has made a great impression to me. Her guitar-playing is top notch and lyrics insightful. The main point, however, are the great melodies that she composes. She's also excellent and funny live, so I encourage to go and see her play.
Blitzen Trapper
This peculiar band started off as a fairly average folk band, but quickly they moved on to add some excellent rock elements developing their sound towards more ambitious folk-rock. Their album Furr is a timeless masterpiece with excellent songs from start to finish.
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Stephen Malkmus became known as the frontman of Pavement. His solo career with the Jicks has been quite different though. The songs are more melodic containing some progressive rock and folk elements. His album Real Emotional Trash especially is a must have album!
Menomena
Menomena is an indie rock band that has some phenomenal songs. Their music is quite uneven though. Some songs are brilliant and some songs I can't be bothered to listen to. Fortunately there are more of the good ones, especially on the first and third albums. They use fantastic saxophones sounds in their music and they're great live!
Greylag
Greylag makes melancholic folky indie rock with high-pitched vocals. Their sound draws influences from bands like Radiohead, raising the quiet folky tones to overdriven guitars from time to time. Their self-titled album was one of the most interesting albums of last year (2014).
Bark Hide and Horn
Bark Hide and Horn mix together acoustic folk sounds and wilder electronic instruments. They also use a variety of other instruments in their melodramatic indie music. The vocals are sung with typical indie style.
A Weather
A Weather plays melancholic indie folk with a strong emphasis on organs, such as Rhodes Stage Piano. They also use vocal harmonies quite fantastically. This is the kind of music that I feel like listening to when I want to wallow in my own sadness.
Chromatics
This electro-indie band has very different sounding songs. some of the songs are pure electronic pop, whereas some songs are played with beautiful echoed electric guitars with echoey vocals on top. I especially like their sad guitar ballads where they have used the familiar scratching of a vinyl record even in the digital versions.
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond plays gypsy influenced folk music in the style of Beirut and Katzenjammer. They use a variety of different instruments and the vocals have indie tones. There's quite a lot of sadness in their songs, but not in a crushing kind of way.
Alela Diane
I was introduced to Alela Diane's music about six months ago and I became an instant fan. Her quiet and beautiful electric guitars along with her beautiful singing voice were perfect in making melancholic folk songs that she makes.
The Woodlands
Echoey female vocals and folk tunes that rise up higher and higher using a variety of instruments. They use a lot of echo and soft drums in their music to create an air of mystique. This is just excellent indie folk-pop.
The River Empires
The River Empires plays beautiful piano-driven songs with high-pitched male vocals. The songs are melancholic and magical. At times, their music reminds me of Sufjan Stevens' Michigan album, even if the sounds are simpler.
Grails
Grails play melancholic piano-driven indie music. They also have some post-rock elements with classical music influences coming together with soaring electric guitars and buzzing electronic sounds. This mostly instrumental music is very beautiful and dark.
Kind of Like Spitting
If you like Bright Eyes, you are sure to like Kind of Like Spitting. The simple piano-driven songs with delicate breaking vocals and endearing vocal harmonies are incredibly beautiful. The music is not as lo-fi as the album covers might suggest.
Blind Pilot
Blind Pilot is a fantastic new-folk band reminiscent of bands like Mumford & Sons or The Head and the Heart. They play beautiful, yet hopeful, folk melodies. The lead singer has a strong and recognisable voice.
She & Him
In addition to her acting career, this band proofs just how lovely Zooey Deschanel is. She and M. Ward put their forces together to create excellent and cute folk music with excellent melodies and often funny lyrics.
The Quiet American
This band plays quite old school folk with banjos, mandolins and all. This is the kind of music you might expect to hear in a Coen brothers film. Even if the style is traditional and old, the sounds are produced carefully to give the music a bit more modern style.
Water Tower Bucket Boys
As the name suggests, this is some old school traditional folk. Acoustic instruments such as double bass, bag and a fiddle give these excellent storytelling songs a fantastic sound. The singer could have a bit more interesting voice, but everything else is perfect for a true Americana folk band.
Richmond Fontaine
Fontaine plays quite traditional sounding folk music, but the main point of his music is his fantastic guitar playing. It's fast and skilful. The melodies are sad and melancholic and his raspy and rugged vocals are perfect for this kind of music. Everything is perfected by a subtle harmonica.
Heatmiser
Elliott Smith's band before his solo career sounds at best just like his solo music. Unfortunately it's not all as fantastic. Some of the songs are quite noisy. Still, at best you can just imagine listening to a lost track from his solo career!
No. 2
When Elliott Smith left Heatmiser for his solo career, the rest of the band formed No.2. It's not by far as good as Elliott's music, but there are still some interesting sounds in this folky rock that they play. The vocals are the poorest part in this band, but hey, you can't expect to follow Elliott Smith.
Weinland
Weiland plays beautiful folk-pop-rock with melancholic melodies and typical high-pitched male vocals in the style of Bon Iver. Their music is much more active than Bon Iver's though. They use quite traditional band instruments, but the production is still beautifully carried out.
The Delines
The Delines play quite traditional sounding Americana folk with beautiful female vocals. The sound is more traditional country sound than with most of the Portland's indie folkers. This is the kind of music you would listen to driving your car alone in the dark.
Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer
This duo sings absolutely beautiful folk songs with simple guitars. Their vocals come together perfectly in beautifully written harmonies. There's some absolutely beautiful, yet subtle, violins to bring spice to these acoustic dreams.
Kelly Joe Phelps
Kelly Joe Phelps is a master in acoustic blues guitar. He's great at picking and using slide guitars. He has a raspy and rugged voice that supports the bluesy melodies nicely. It's all very simple man and a guitar type of stuff, but it works.
M. Ward
M. Ward is a great guitar-player and singer-songwriter whose melodic and calm folk has influences from traditional folk, but also more modern stuff. He has also played with the Monsters of Folk combo and above mentioned She & Him.
Dolorean
Dolores plays beautiful and dark folk songs with melancholic melodies. The guitars and strings come together in beautiful paintings of sound. The songs are calm, but intense enough to make you listen to the lyrics and focus on the music.
Sean Flinn & The Royal We
This folk group plays excellent indie folk with echoey and shattering delicate voice. The drums pound with low sounds making the music sound a bit like acoustic Arcade Fire. The melodies are catchy and beautiful.
Pure Bathing Culture
Pure Bathing Culture represents the new indie sound with echoey and lo-fi female vocals and sunny and pure guitars. The melodies have melancholic tones, but the main feel is more sunny. Very classy indie.
The Helio Sequence
This band is just what the 00's indie folk was all about. Airy and calm melodies, clean and echoey sounds and excellent songs. If you like Noah and the Whale, this should be right up your street. Sometimes the sounds lean towards rock as well.
Stars of Track and Field
This band sounds way too commercial for my taste in general. They do, however sound pretty good if you listen to their acoustic songs when the production has not ruined everything. The vocalist is actually really good.
Buddy
Endearing indie pop with glockenspiels, pianos and airy and clean guitars. The vocals are high and very indie. This is a pure example of wuss-pop, but in a good sense of the word. This is music made with heart.
Ages and Ages
This folk band sounds very British to be from the US. Then again, I guess it's just because they have internalised the endearing sound people in indie music have. The vocals are laconic and the music ranges from quiet to quite big.
Horse Feathers
This quite traditional folk band plays summery tunes with mainly acoustic instruments. This music brings to mind freshly cut grass and bare feet on hot sand. They also use some folk fiddle and double bass to give that pure folk sound to their songs.
Lost Lander
Lost Lander plays groovy folk-pop with bluesy electric guitars. The overall sound is very indie. It's sometimes subtle and acoustic, sometimes aggressively rough blues. The vocals are a bit off-key, but just right for this music.
Wet Confetti
Wet Confetti is an electronica band. They play strange melodies and sounds. Their main tone is quite dark, yet there are some quirky sounds in there as well. It sounds like these people have listened to trip-hop quite a lot.
Houndstooth
Houndstooth plays perky rock songs with influences from surf rock and psychedelia. The melodies are quite innovative, whilst they use quite traditional rock instruments and sounds. This is retro music for the hipsters.
Todd Snider
Todd Snider plays up-beat country rock. It's a bit too produced for my taste, but the compositions are good enough. He has a great raspy singing voice. The songs are summery and poppy. The overall sound is really American.
Subject Bias
This indie folk band plays quite poppy songs. They use instruments such as ukuleles in addition to more basic band instruments. There are nice vocal harmonies. Very simple music, but good at that.
Robin Bacior
Robin Bacior plays artsy indie pop with emphasis on piano and picked string instruments. Her music sounds a bit like Joanna Newsom, but not as dreamy. With a little bit better songs, this could be really interesting, but some final touches are missing.
Laura Gibson
Laura Gibson has a raspy and honey-dripping voice which fits in perfectly with Western style electric guitars and wild drums. The songs are really melodic and bluesy with strange alternative instrumentations.
The Dandy Warhols
This rock band was in a great lift at the beginning of the millennium, but since then they have been mostly forgotten. Their roots are in garage rock, but the sound is much tamer. If you like Swedish rock bands such as The Soundtrack of Our Lives, you'll probably like these guys as well.
And And And
And And And is the archetype of 00's indie band. Strange vocals, raw electric guitars and fast but simple drumming. They draw their influences from late-70's post punk, but give it more modern tones.
Everclear
Evercleafr sounds so very 90's. This is the kind of music that was born in the aftermath of the grunge era. They're not as raw and aggressive as the grunge artists of the early 90's, but they use the same sort of aesthetics in their pop-rock.
The Exposies
The Exposies plays fast electronically spiced indie rock that is perfect for hipster-filled indie discos. The female vocals are quite aggressive and synthesisers buzz over pretty basic punky rock guitars. Excellent early 00's indie music
Adventure Gallery
This indie pop-rock band plays organ-heavy tunes with catchy melodies and laconic cool vocals. This is once again an arch type of 00's indie band using lo-fi aesthetics with strange organ sounds.
Hockey
This 80's style rock band plays indie-esque stadium rock. The sounds are not as big as back in the 80's, but there are some definite influences from 80's Bruce Springsteen. Everything is mathematically in its place.
Norfolk & Western
This folky indie-pop band plays catchy and cute melodies with alternative guitar sounds. This is exactly the kind of music I want to listen to when I don't want to move complicate things. Simple but great!
The High Violets
This band sounds very 90's in the style of Cranberries. Female singer singing airy and echoey vocals on top of overdriven, but melodic guitars. The bass lines are more melodic than in your average band as well.
The Shaky Hands
This is what indie music sounds like. Delicate and breaking vocals, catchy melodies played with organic sounding band instruments. There are some similarities to Bright Eyes in the sounds, but the overall tone is not as crushingly melancholic.
Quasi
This indie pop band plays heavy keyboards on top of traditional set of band instruments. The vocals are laconic and cool. This is what 00's style indie sounds like. The singer has an awful technique in his singing, but it doesn't really matter at all.
Plankton Wat
This electronica band plays ambient-like sound paintings with electronic elements and psychedelia guitars. I'm sure they have listened their fair share of George Harrison sitar songs. The vocals are merely used as an instrument without the lyrics.
Radiation City
Radiation City plays cool indie-pop spiced up with electronic samples and echoey band instruments. The female vocals are full of air and echo. This is the kind of music you would listen to when being particularly happy about something.
31Knots
This indie band plays aggressive sounding indie rock where the bass takes the main stage with the drums while guitar makes strange patterns on top of everything. Vocals are not trained and they shout more than sing in places.
Wild Ones
Wild Ones plays perky indie-pop with strong emphasis on electric piano. The drums are playing indie-disco beats and female vocals are high-pitched and a bit off-key. This is cool music for the cool hipster generation.
All Girl Summer Fun Band
As the name suggests, this is an all girl band with up-beat indie-punk songs. The whole aesthetics have been drawn from post-punk and new wave tradition, but the dark and industrial sound of the 80's is missing.
The Upsidedown
This jumpy indie rock band plays summery songs where the drum beats lead the other instruments while low vocals sing cool melodies. It all sounds very amateurish but I'm not saying this is a bad thing.
Dharma Bums
This cool indie-rock band plays quite straight-forward rock music with raw vocals. There are some guitar sounds that have probably gotten their influences from surf-rock wave. Otherwise there are strong post-punk influences.
The Prids
Overdriven lo-fi guitars, mathematical basslines and cool indie vocals play excellent shoegaze/indie rock. This is like British Sea Power would have teamed up with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart to make awesome music.
Nice Boys
Nice Boys sound exactly like the more modern version of T. Rex. The pianos and guitars pound with glam-rock sounds and cool vocals top it all in the catchy songs. I bet this band would sound great live even though it can be a bit boring from album.
The Exploding Hearts
This punk-pop band plays upbeat rock n' roll in the style of the Ramones. They have strong resemblance to punk's first wave, while at the same time their songs are happier and more melodic and not as aggressive.
The Thermals
The Thermals play poppy garage punk with melodic songs. The production is kind of crappy, even though it soundalike it's all planned. This could be compared to artists such as Green Day, but not in as stadium kind of way.
Sprinkler
Sprinkler plays heavy electric guitars in 90's grunge style. Their singer screams melodic sounds with his raspy tone. The only thing that separates this music from bands like Pearl Jam or Stone Temple Pilots is their more fine-tuned production.
Pond
This band is not to be confused with current Australian indie rockers. The Oregon-based Pond was a grunge band playing messy and heavy indie rock songsmith overdriven guitars and heavy drumming.
Eternal Tapestry
This psychedelic Rock band plays long progressive songs with heavy guitars and stoner-rock sounds. The bass and drums are doing their job while guitars are soaring on top of the hypnotising concoction.
Ever We Fall
Ever We Fall plays haunting and dark indie rock with some post-rock influences. They use a lot of echo in the guitars and the vocals are raspy and practiced. The sound is a bit too clean for this type of music, but it's still good. Reminds me of Jimmy Eat World.
Theatre of Sheep
This indie rock band uses clean electric guitars and strong bass lines over their disco-type drumming. The vocals are cool. There are apparent influences from 80's new wave music, but the sound is more modern and the instruments mainly sound natural.
Talkdemonic
Talkdemonic plays quiet electronica. The electric beats accompany ambient-like subtle synth sounds and electronic buzzing. It's instrumental and the melodies don't change that much, but the atmosphere is cool. Great music to gather your thoughts.
Ryan Francesconi & Mirabai Peart
This duo's music is very thrapeutic. Acoustic guitars picked perfectly accompanied by a high soaring folk fiddle. It's all instrumental and works brilliantly to hypnotise you in the mood to just be alone with your thoughts.
Pink Martini
This is the kind of music you could expect to hear in Woody Allen Movies. The songs range from kletzmer to French chanson. The clarinet has a strong part in this music. This works beautifully as a soundtrack to adventures in the nature.
Chris Juhlin & The Collective
This colective plays beautiful country songs with excellent use of steel guitars. The beats range from typical country rhythms to reggae and ska. The basslines are quite innovative and melodies beautiful. The vocals have a bit of nasal into them, which works nicely in this type of music.
Dirty Martini
Dirty Martini plays melancholic indie folk-rock. The female singer has a fantastic honey-dripping raspy voice. Guitars are picked beautifully and on top of all that there are massive string arrangements and deep bass lines.
Minmae
Minmae's atmospheric indie rock is dark and haunting. Deep bass, low key drumming and strong vocals make this band distinct from wailing and weeping wuss-indie groups. There's deep melancholy but still the overall sound stays strong.
Reclinerland
This is a great band to end the playlist. Calm, beautiful and insightful music played mainly by a piano. The lyrics are quite political, but not in annoying lecturing way. The song on the playlist is agreat way to say goodbye for the music of Oregon.
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