Indie Today

The lines of definition for "indie" are often blurred, but if we fall back on its broadest meaning — unforgettable, multi-genre, cutting-edge music — today's fermenting scene is starting to look like something of a golden age. Ever-inventive American noise rock outfit Deerhunter heads up our selection with "Revival", the lead single from their fourth studio album, 2010's Halcyon Digest, and Canadian-born muso-brainiac Dan Snaith, aka Caribou, continues to bridge the digital and organic worlds with cuts like "Sun". California's Avi Buffalo, meanwhile, mixes gently sparkling West Coast melodies with sidewinding leftfield poetry on "What's In It For?" Our current indie searchlight shines everywhere from NZ to San Fran, in Next Steps.

If you fancy investigating deeper into New Zealand indie than Flight of the Conchords, try a harmonious blast of Lawrence Arabia, aka James Milne, who toured with Crowded House in 2010, on the back of his second solo album Chant Darling 2009, which contains the bubblegummy "Apple Pie Bed". Philadelphia's Cold Cave, selected by All Tomorrow's Parties curator Matt Groening for his 2010 line-up in Minehead, set themselves at the head of the current synthpop pack with tracks like "Life Magazine", all-female trio Vivian Girls decorate our mix with the corrosive lo-fi fuzz of "I Have No Fun", and San Francisco's Ty Segall takes us back to their basement with "The Drag". The indie pun machine creates Ringo Deathstarr and Gringo Star, in Deep Cuts.

Here in Deep Cuts, the current indie movement opens up and reveals its spectacular range . . . Bombay Bicycle Club creates a sweet tangle of confusion, topped by the quivering vocals of Jack Steadman, on "Evening / Morning", Brooklyn's Suckers create an unusual brassy wobble to unsettling effect on "Out on the Water", and barrelling out of America's West Coast on a wave of garage-rock energy come the Soft Pack, with "Answer to Yourself". Ringo Deathstarr wins the prize for wittiest moniker, and delivers the sticky chainsaw fuzz of "In Love", while Gringo Star pays similar tongue-in-cheek homage to the former Beatles drummer: check out "All Yall".

Everything we look for in indie music — whether it's unfettered experimentalism, the shock of the new, the raging fire of strong convictions, or just a bunch of artfully assembled sounds the like of which we've never before encountered — can be found right here, in our Essentials salute to currently captivating pop and rock of the leftfield persuasion. Great bands from all corners of the globe showcase their wares, from the largely acoustic to the wholly cranked-up, and from the electro-charged to the gloriously profane. Sure, there may be a little fog in the areas where the worlds of indie ambition and major label patronage collide, but all these bands share one common desire . . . to shatter preconceptions, make a lasting mark, and offer us blindingly brilliant tunes.