 | | Hailing from the suburbs of Toronto, the Most Serene Republic features Adrian Jewett(vocals), Adam Nimmo(drums), Ryan Lenssen(keyboards), Nick Greaves(guitar), Andrew McArthur(bass), and Emma Ditchburn(vocals/guitar). |
 | | 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. |
 | | Andrew Whiteman created the atmospheric post-rock/experimental sound of Apostle of Hustle in 2001. Whiteman returned to his native Toronto to resume writing and recording with Broken Social Scene after a two-month stay with his godmother's family in Cuba. |
 | | The Dears, a loose collective of Montreal-area musicians formed in 1995, are led by the charismatic Murray Lightburn. |
 | | Brendan Canning, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and founding member of Canadian indie rock supergroup Broken Social Scene, has recorded under numerous tent poles, including stints in By Divine Right and hHead, and also as a solo performer. |
 | | As a founding member of the experimental indie pop group Broken Social Scene, as well as a memeber of the label that puts out its music, Arts & Crafts, Kevin Drew worked with ten or more musicians in a collective that helped usher in the chamber pop movement. |
 | | The Post are a Bloomington, IN-based trio. They released their first full-length, Backwards, on Super Asbestos Records in late 2002. |
 | | The Stills only bore scant similarities to Interpol, but like those suit-wearing New Yorkers, the Stills launched their career with a stately post-punk sound inspired by the likes of Echo & the Bunnymen and Joy Division. |
 | | The Sea and Cake are a post-rock supergroup of sorts, comprised of luminaries from the Chicago independent scene. |
 | | With a reputation for a scathingly intense live performance and a quickly sold-out CD-R demo, How Strange, Innocence, which was later reissued in 2005, Explosions in the Sky was touted early on in their career as the next phenomenon in moody and dynamic instrumental indie rock à la Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor! The quartet of Texas kids, made up of Mark Smith and Munaf Rayani on guitars, Michael James on bass, and Christopher Hrasky on drums, was signed for its first release on Temporary Residence Limited after half a listen to their demo, which was submitted by the American Analog Set with a brief note saying "This totally f*cking destroys. |
 | | Formed in April of 1998, Scotland's Aerogramme counted unique songwriter Craig B(ex-Ganger), Campbell McNeil, and drummer Martin Scott as members. |
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 | | The Dead Science came together in late 2000 after losing its original moniker, the Sweet Science, to an emo band. |
 | | Tortoise revolutionized American indie rock in the mid-'90s by playing down tried-and-true punk and rock & roll influences, emphasizing instead the incorporation of a variety of left-field music genres from the past 20 years, including Krautrock, dub, avant-garde jazz, classical minimalism, ambient and space music, film music, and British electronica. |
 | | The cosmic post-rock band Mogwai were formed in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1996 by guitarist/vocalist Stuart Braithwaite, guitarist Dominic Aitchison, and drummer Martin Bulloch, longtime friends with the goal of creating "serious guitar music. |
 | | Named after the geometrical term for a non-orientable surface that cannot be embedded in a plane, the Mobius Band's music is similarly hard to place, lying somewhere between bittersweet indie rock, electronic pop, and alt-country leanings. |
 | | The post-rock/experimental outfit the Big Sleep feature Danny Barria (guitar), Sonya Balchandani (bass/vocals), and Gabe Rhodes (drums). |
 | | The Standard hail from Portland, where they began playing shows in 1999. Vocalist/guitarist Tim Putnam, keyboardist Jay Clarke, bassist Rob Oberdorfer, and drummer Rob Duncan had known each other from playing in various bands -- and in various styles -- around town, and as the Standard they incorporated all of that to develop a moody and unpredictable indie rock sound. |
 | | 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. |
 | | Named for the Great Lakes Native American tribe the Odawas, the Indiana indie pop trio's quirky tales of myth and mayhem bring to mind everyone from Randy Newman and the Beach Boys to Twin Peaks composer Angelo Badalamanti. |
 | | The electronic trio South began out of a bond between friends. Joel Cadbury, Brett Shaw, and Jamie McDonald met as teenagers while attending Haverstock Secondary School in London. |
 | | With a heavier, more rockist sound than the post-rock groups that also call Chicago home, Wax on Radio -- a quartet from the northern city suburbs of Schaumburg and Lake Forest -- nonetheless have a similarly oblique, progressive element to their sound, blending the sonic explorations of folks like Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor! with a more concise indie rock base. |
 | | This Toronto-area band formed in the fall of 2002 when guitarist Ronnie Morris was seeking members for a group. |
 | | Though both grew up near each other in Abilene, TX, it wasn't until 1999 that John Mark Lapham and Micah P. |
 | | Songwriter Tara Jane O'Neil dove into her musical career in 1992 at the tender age of 20, playing bass for the influential Louisville, Kentucky art punk ensemble Rodan. |
 | | The Leeds, England-based lo-fi bliss-popsters Hood comprised Andrew Johnson, Chris Adams, Richard Adams, John Evans, Craig Tattersall and Nicola Hodgkinson. |
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 | | Chicago post-rock trio Pit Er Pat comprised bassist Rob Doran(a founding member of Alkaline Trio), classically trained pianist Fay Davis-Jeffers, and drummer Butchy Fuego(a onetime contributor to Neutral Milk Hotel). |
 | | The For Carnation was a low-key, mostly acoustic vehicle for ex-Slint/Squirrel Bait member Brian McMahan, whose previous projects had all made their impact through jagged, noisy art-punk. |
 | | The instrumental rock group Character began as a side project for its members when it was formed in Nashville, TN, in 2001. |
 | | In the late '90s, New York native Justin Russo imagined forming a pop group fronted with an orchestra. |
 | | Unusual to say the least, Dragons of Zynth somehow cut and paste together a dizzying fusion of jazz, punk, dub, funk, soul, and hard rock, a sound that's been referred to as "Afrotek. |
 | | Imaad Wasif was touring with Lowercase when he met Russell Pollard in 1999. Pollard was playing with Sebadoh at the time, and the two became fast friends. |
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 | | A combination of indie rock muscle and theatrical, unapologetic bombast turned Arcade Fire into indie royalty in the early 2000s. |
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 | | Valley of the Giants is a Canadian supergroup featuring members of Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Strawberry, and Shalabi Effect. |
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 | | After the breakup of experimental lo-fi indie rock band the Unicorns, members Nicholas Thorburn (aka Nick Diamonds; vocals, guitar, keyboard) and Jaime Thompson (aka J'aime Tambeur; drums) formed Islands, which found the two more focused on brighter production and neo-psychedelic indie pop. |
 | | Singer/songwriter Adam Baker, guitarist Kenny Florence, bassist Mike Robinson, guitarist Zack Oden, pianist Anna Spence, and drummer Nick Radford create the orchestrated, expansive indie rock of North Carolina's Annuals. |
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 | | The spacey, mellow, Glasgow, Scotland-based indie rock outfit International Airport is essentially the project of Tom Crossley, who previously collaborated with the Pastels and Appendix Out. |
 | | There are two basic types of epic, grandiose music in contemporary indie rock. On one side, there are artists inspired by the likes of U2 and Jeff Buckley, where the vocals and lyrics take center stage and the music is there to support the strong personality of the lead singer. |
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 | | The coed members of Earlimart favor a midtempo approach to their start-stop motions of experimental post-punk, dreamy indie pop, and folky undertones. |
 | | Emily Haines is the frontwoman for Toronto's indie dance-rock band Metric. Although her first record arrived several years after Metric had formed, Haines had always been writing her own material. |
 | | Putting a metal edge on exploratory post-rock, Akron, Ohio's If These Trees Could Talk deliver sprawling sounds tempered with blistering movement. |
 | | Best-known for his work with the Verlaines (during which time he appeared on a total of seven albums), singer/guitarist Graeme Downes set off for a solo career in the early 21st century. |
 | | The Poison Arrows have a somewhat complicated, two-part history. The original, more pop-oriented band formed in 1996 in Knoxville, TN, as a transitional project between two other, better-known bands. |
