 | | Dorian Cox (guitar), Reenie Delaney (bass), Emma Chaplin (guitar/vocals), Kate Jackson (vocals), and Screech Louder (drums) comprise the glamorous new wave-tinged stylings of the Long Blondes. |
 | | Toronto-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Josh Reichmann was a member of Tangiers and appeared on the group's three albums, Hot New Spirits (2003), Never Bring You Pleasure (2004), and The Family Myth (2005), before launching a solo career. |
 | | Named after a Japan B-side, Life Without Buildings actually drew a little more from several post-punk bands and another that their name seemed to acknowledge: Talking Heads. |
 | | The Broken West hailed from Los Angeles, which certainly makes sense when you listen to the band's combination of pop, high-spirited rock&roll, and accents of folk and country, whose overall blend recalled some of the best L. |
 | | Fusing '70s AM radio hooks with acid rock expanses, Brooklyn's Cliffie Swan used to be known as Lights. |
 | | Having met in early 2009 over a mutual appreciation of cocktails (lead singer Frankie Francis worked in a pub frequented by drummer Dave Harper and guitarist Michael McKnight), Sunderland indie romantics Frankie & the Heartstrings made a miraculous leap from unknowns to Wichita Recordings hopefuls in little over a year. |
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 | | Fusing '70s AM radio hooks with acid rock expanses, Lights featured vocalist/guitarist Sophia Knapp, drummer/vocalist Linnea Vedder, and bassist Alana Amram. |
 | | Toward the end of 2009, in a bedroom in Stockton, California -- previously known only in the music world for producing Stephen Malkmus' Pavement -- a 21-year-old Justin Paul Vallesteros began experimenting with simple synth and guitar lines, gradually layering them to create the sound that would become Craft Spells. |
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 | | U.K. artists Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey started making music together as Summer Camp in October of 2009, and their sunny wash of mellow C-86 pop was a timely fit with the lo-fi synth pop craze (coined “chillwave”) that was sweeping the States. |
 | | Det Vackra Livet formed in 2010 as side project for brothers Henrik and Philip Ekström. Like their flagship group, the Mary Onettes, Det Vackra Livet found the Gothenburg, Sweden-based siblings in their comfort zones, serving up another round of icy, retro-synth pop in the vein of New Order and the Cure. |
 | | Formed in a Stockholm suburb and influenced by the Cure, Depeche Mode, and Duran Duran, drummer Carl DeLorean, singer Joakim Hjelm, and bassist Kit Balance formed Kamera in 2000. |
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 | | Chicago quartet California Wives were formed in 2009 by multi-instrumentalists Dan Zima and Hans Michel along with drummer Joe O'Connor. |
 | | The Legends are one of several indie pop projects masterminded by Swedish producer/musician Johan Angergård, whose other bands include the Acid House Kings (the group for whom he is best known) and Club 8. |
 | | Paying tribute to the Chameleons and Joy Division, darkwave revivalists Dial M for Murder! create dark, moody pop. |
 | | Jack Tatum, formerly of Jack and the Whale and Facepaint, began making his shimmery, synth-washed indie pop recordings under the name Wild Nothing in the summer of 2009. |
 | | Formed in 2011, Ormonde is an American indie folk duo featuring singer/songwriters Anna Lynne Williams (Lotte Kestner, Trespassers William) and Robert Gomez. |
 | | Formed by former members of Lansing-Dreiden in late 2007, New York's Violens derive their name from a combination of "violence" and "violins. |
 | | Frankie Rose and the Outs are the vehicle for noise pop maven Frankie Rose. After putting in time with the Vivian Girls (serving as the band's drummer and writing "Where Do You Run To"), Crystal Stilts, and the Dum Dum Girls, Rose decided to work on her own material -- a series of luminous, reverb-slicked indie pop tunes that, perhaps unsurprisingly, gave a heavy nod to Talulah Gosh, Black Tambourine, and My Bloody Valentine. |
 | | After putting in time with Vivian Girls (serving as the band's drummer and writing "Where Do You Run To," a highlight of their first album), Crystal Stilts, and the Dum Dum Girls, Brooklyn-based noise pop drummer/vocalist Frankie Rose decided to work on her own material -- a series of luminous, reverb-slicked indie pop tunes influenced by Talulah Gosh, Black Tambourine, and My Bloody Valentine. |
 | | Chris Deveney(vocals/guitar/bass), Gary Deveney(vocals/guitar), Paul McGeachy(guitar), Laura McFarlane(vocals/violin/piano), and Ryan King(drums) create the dreamy indie rock stylings of My Latest Novel. |
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 | | A Los Angeles quartet dealing in sparse, atmospheric art rock, Warpaint originally consisted of sisters Jenny Lee Lindberg and Shannyn Sossamon (on bass and drums, respectively), as well as Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman on vocal and guitar. |
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 | | Olympia, WA's Desolation Wilderness borrows cues from dreamy electro-pop and uses a loose analog recording method -- aided in no small degree by a Roland Space Echo, two Maestro Echoplex delay units, and several spring reverbs -- to create a narcotic, dusty take on the style. |
 | | Deriving their name from a fateful combination of magnetic poetry words, Pittsburgh, PA's Life in Bed formed in 2001 with ex-Manifold Splendour members Sean Finn, Bill Merante, Craig Svitek, and David Horn. |
 | | Finnish indie pop stalwarts Jessika Rapo (vocalist for Le Futur Pompiste) and Henry Ojala (drummer for Cats on Fire) teamed up to form the shambly, synthy duo Burning Hearts in 2004. |
 | | Heavily influenced by new wave bands and film soundtracks, chamber pop purveyor Eric Matthews and Cleveland, OH, multi-instrumentalist Christopher Seink began collaborating on their Seinking Ships project in 2006. |
 | | Formed in Atlanta, GA, by vocalist, keyboard player, and guitarist Peter Felix Armstrong(who was originally trained in opera) and bandmates Ricardo Melendez(drums, vocals), Jesse Greene(guitar, vocals), and Johnny Ray(bass), Dearestazazel took inspiration from groups such as Blue Öyster Cult, the Cure, and the Faint and combined a rock foundation with powerful electronic accompaniment. |
 | | Hailing from the town of Southend, England, the four-piece These New Puritans play Fall- and PiL-inspired music that also takes on elements of electronica and dance. |
 | | Driven by percussive grooves and flirtatious vocals, Brooklyn's Friends find a modern middle ground between post-disco and '60s girl group sounds. |
 | | Formed in New Orleans in 2001, Yellow #5 craft dark post-punk and R&B-infused chamber pop with a sharp nocturnal edge. |
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 | | Smith & Burrows, a collaboration between Tom Smith from the Editors and Andy Burrows from Razorlight and We Are Scientists, came to fruition after numerous house sessions between the two friends. |
 | | As core contributors to the new musical renaissance of Detroit, Slumber Party conveys stunningly slow femme doom rock with a late-night vibe. |
 | | Formed after the 1997 breakup of singer/songwriter Joe Pernice's alt-country group the Scud Mountain Boys, the Pernice Brothers did an about-face from the lush '70s country sound of their final album, Massachusetts, and came up with the lush orchestrated pop of 1998's Overcome By Happiness. |
 | | La Scala was formed by singer/guitarist Balthazar de Ley after stints in Menthol and Hum. He added drummer Joshua Lohr, a former member of the Dirty Things, bassist Ryan Jewel, and guitarist Kirk McMahon, and the band made its debut at the Empty Bottle in Chicago in early 2007. |
 | | Musician and illustrator Archer Prewitt was born and raised in Frankfort, KY, going on to attend art school in Kansas City. |
 | | Holding their first practice in late 2001, the Static Age were formed by longtime friends Andrew Paley(lead vocals/guitar), Adam Meilleur(bass), and Bobby Hackney(drums). |
