 | | Although he kept most details of his personal life -- including his real name -- a mystery, Harlan T. |
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 | | Canadian singer/songwriter Luke Doucet is a difficult figure to pin down. On the one hand, he is an acclaimed singer, songwriter, and guitarist whose songs sound like a prairie-bred and countrified Elliott Smith; on the other, he spent several years as the leader of the spacy neo-psych rockers Veal, Vancouver's answer to the Flaming Lips. |
 | | Formed after Propagandhi member John K. Samson got the itch to perform and record again after taking a sabbatical to write and start a publishing company, the Winnipeg-based Weakerthans took Samson's music in a completely different direction. |
 | | Despite their background (punk), geography (Seattle), and label affiliation (Sub Pop), the Walkabouts were anything but a grunge band; dark, haunting, and elegiac, their work instead sprung forth from the storytelling traditions of American roots music and the kinetic excitement of rock & roll. |
 | | Formed in St. John's, Newfoundland, in 2005 around the talents of Tim Baker (vocals, piano, guitar), Adam Hogan (guitar), Josh Ward (bass), Phil Maloney (drums), Kinley Dowling (violin), and Romesh Thavanathan (cello), explosive indie rock sextet Hey Rosetta! craft emotionally resonant rock anthems that echo Brit-pop outfits like Hope of the States and the Veils while channeling the orchestral rock of Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene. |
 | | The Vancouver, Canada, group called the MGB, or the Matthew Good Band, formed in 1995 and quickly began stirring things up in the Canadian world of music. |
 | | Singer/songwriter Rocky Votolato was born in 1978 and spent his childhood on a 50-acre horse farm in rural Frost, TX (population 647), located 100 miles south of Dallas. |
 | | Featuring a blend of acoustic instruments, rural soundscapes, and wistful vocals, Great Lake Swimmers are an indie folk group led by songwriter/vocalist Tony Dekker. |
 | | Sharing a fondness for sophisticated soul and pop artists like the Smiths, New Order, and Marvin Gaye, vocalist Torquil Campbell and keyboardist Chris Seligman formed Stars in Toronto. |
 | | City and Colour was the solo acoustic project of Dallas Green, best known as the singer/guitarist for the Canadian post-hardcore band Alexisonfire. |
 | | Leslie Feist -- best known simply as Feist -- was a respected member of the Canadian alternative music community before becoming an international pop sensation with the success for her albums Let It Die and The Reminder. |
 | | Broken Social Scene materialized in 1999 when K.C. Accidental's Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, formerly of By Divine Right, bonded their friendship into a band. |
 | | Toronto's quirky, high-energy indie rock outfit Tokyo Police Club features vocalist/bassist Dave Monks, keyboardist/vocalist Graham Wright, guitarist/percussionist Josh Hook, and drummer/percussionist Greg Alsop. |
 | | A combination of indie rock muscle and theatrical, unapologetic bombast turned Arcade Fire into indie royalty in the early 2000s. |
 | | Folk-rock duo Tegan and Sara first burst onto the Canadian music scene in 1998, when they earned the highest score in history at Calgary's "Garage Warz" competition; their quick rise didn't stop, for their melodic acoustics and charming stage personas led to a slew of dates with Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair that same year and a record deal with Neil Young's Vapor Records in April 2000. |
 | | Metric are a band with an eclectic, adventurous outlook, whose music encompasses elements of synth pop, new wave, dance-rock, and electronica and whose hometown has vacillated between Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, and London over the course of the group's existence. |
 | | Urban folk singer/songwriter Damien Jurado quietly built up one of the strongest catalogs on the indie scene, earning high critical praise yet somehow never quite getting his proper due. |
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 | | McCarthy Trenching is the alternative country-rock project of Dan McCarthy, an Omaha-based musician who has collaborated with fellow Nebraska outfits like Bright Eyes, Tilly and the Wall, and Azure Ray. |
 | | Singer/songwriter J. Tillman's music paints languid, sadly beautiful portraits of love and life on the margins with the moody depth of Nick Drake and the country-influenced textures of Ryan Adams. |
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 | | The maturity of Justin Nozuka's music, a soulful blend of R&B and pensive singer/songwriter folk that recalls both Nick Drake and Lauryn Hill, belies his tender years: Nozuka was only 18 when his debut album was released. |
 | | Born in 1979, Swedish singer/songwriter Thomas Denver Jonsson didn't start playing guitar until he was 20 years old, but he's been furiously making up for lost time ever since. |
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 | | Although British folk guitarist John Smith bears comparison to his alternative folk contemporaries like Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Fionn Regan, José González, and Cara Dillon, the Devon-born, Liverpool-based prodigy has connections to an older generation of inventive and progressive folk guitarists as well, having played alongside John Martyn, John Renbourn, and Martin Simpson. |
 | | Kentucky-based singer/songwriter Daniel Martin Moore had the rare fortune of securing a record deal through an unsolicited demo. |
 | | Since the formation of Thrice in 1998, Dustin Kensrue was most notably known as the lead singer, lyricist, and guitarist for the well-regarded Irvine, California post-hardcore quartet. |
 | | The Toronto-based Royal City was led by singer/songwriter Aaron Riches, who worked alongside Jim Guthrie, Nathan Lawr, Simon Osborne, and Evan Gordon to create an intense and personal brand of rustic indie rock. |
 | | Although playing guitar and singing with the Avett Brothers is Seth Avett's day job, he also moonlights as a solo artist. |
 | | Noah and the Whale became a leading light in the British folk scene with the release of 2008's Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, their popular debut that cracked the U. |
 | | Born and raised in Iowa City, IA, singer and songwriter Kelly Pardekooper waited until the ripe old age of 32 to record his first album, but his maturity and life experiences show in his music, which matches rough-hewn but tuneful alt-country with honest, emotional tales of life in the Midwest. |
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 | | A singer and songwriter of uncommon resonance, Doug Burr was born in 1972 in Dallas, TX, growing up in a Southern Baptist family, the spiritual residue of which has been a lifelong influence on his musical endeavors. |
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 | | After retiring Songs: Ohia, Jason Molina started up Magnolia Electric Co., a new avenue to explore his country-rock. |
 | | Based in London, the indie rock quintet Absentee are comprised of Dan Michaelson (vocals, guitar), Melinda Bronstein (vocals, keyboards, melodica, glockenspiel), Babak Ganjei (guitar, lap steel), Laurie Earle (bass), and Jon Chandler (drums). |
 | | Chris Bathgate is a prolific singer/songwriter whose stark, heartbroken songs (similar in tone to those of Will Oldham or Damien Jurado) earned him a strong local following throughout southeast Michigan. |
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 | | While Ron Franklin doesn't seem to enjoy giving out details about himself -- when or where he was born, where he's living, or even where he'll be playing -- he's become a vital presence on the Memphis, Tennessee music scene, working with a wide variety of noted musicians (among them Jim Dickinson, Jeffrey Evans and James Cotton) and releasing several acclaimed solo albums. |
 | | Specializing in a kind of atmospheric country-folk-pop, Band of Annuals formed in 2004 in Salt Lake City, UT, with a lineup that included Jay Henderson(vocals, guitar, harmonica), Jeremi Hanson(vocals, keyboards), Brent Dreiling(pedal steel), Trevor Handley(bass), Jamie Timm(guitar), and Charlie Lewis(drums). |
 | | Alt-country group Milton Mapes was formed as a duo by Greg Vanderpool and Roberto Sánchez in 1999. The project, which was named after Vanderpool's grandfather, was born from Vanderpool and Sánchez's experience in the music scene of Deep Ellum, a neighborhood in Dallas, TX. |
 | | A literate singer/songwriter whose music splits the difference between pop/rock and folksy Americana, Brandi Carlile was born in the small town of Ravensdale, Washington, an isolated community 50 miles from Seattle. |
 | | Singer Roddy Woomble achieved recognition in the late '90s/early 2000s as the frontman for Scottish rock band Idlewild, which released a handful of albums before Woomble chose to explore his options as a solo artist. |
 | | A fixture on the female Americana landscape, Kathleen Edwards was born in Ottawa, Canada, the daughter of foreign service parents who played piano and guitar in their spare time. |
 | | Wayne Petti is the frontman for Canadian alt-country band Cuff the Duke, who have toured as the backing band of fellow Canadian Hayden. |
 | | Gainesville, Florida's delicate indie country-rock group Holopaw features singer/songwriter/guitarist John Orth, who worked with Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock on his side project Ugly Casanova. |
 | | A baroque chamber pop band pitched somewhere between the elegant tweeness of Belle&Sebastian and the rustic neo-psychedelia of Mercury Rev, Pseudosix makes a virtue of variety. |
 | | With her earthy, bluesy voice and fresh, unbridled approach to songwriting, Shannon McNally carries the great blues and blues-rock tradition on to new generations of fans who already appreciate bands like the North Mississippi All Stars, Warren Haynes, and others who have gained footholds on the jam band and blues festival circuit -- and turning jam band fans into blues fans can't be a bad thing. |
