Chillwave/Glo-Fi

Chillwave — sometimes called glo-fi for its radiant DIY vibe — seemed to emerge from the ether overnight in 2009. Loaded with fuzzy cotton-wool effects, the electronic genre draws inspiration from a variety of sources, from new wave to shoegaze, and has divided opinion. Was it truly worthy of next big thing status? Or simply a nebulous micro-trend powered by the internet, and batted around the hip-blogosphere like a tennis ball on a piece of cosmic string? These Essentials should help you decide. Ariel Pink ("Can't Hear My Eyes") was one of chillwave's pioneers, while Neon Indian ("Deadbeat Summer") and Toro y Moi ("Still Sound") remain the brightest of its leading lights.

Let chillwave guide you through cyber-space, in Next Steps.

Got a ropey second-hand Casio keyboard? Then you're almost fully equipped to launch a chillwave career . . . provided, of course, that you can bring plenty of sonic invention to the table. It also helps if you can handle a fluid psychedelic groove, to recreate the sensation of floating above the world in a cocoon of digital goo, as Washed Out (Ernest Greene) does brilliantly with "Feel It All Around". There's a warm therapeutic aura surrounding "Run Out" by Memory Tapes (New Jersey's Dayve Hawke), whose first studio album Seek Magic confirmed the promise of his exploratory chillwave excursions, while "Polnara Setera" by Acid Glasses generates a quasi-mystical freakiness.

The Chillwave avant-garde chops up your soundscape, in Deep Cuts.

Half the satisfaction of chillwave/glo-fi comes from trying to make sense of it — the genre belongs to the non-linear, hyper-saturated, digi-modernist second decade of the 21st century, and is probably best treated as a cloud of sonic fog: dip in, feel your way around, pull something out. Here, you'll find Blackbird Blackbird (Mikey Maramag), who simultaneously numbs and stimulates with "Avalanche", Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) who, like Ariel Pink, foreshadowed much of what chillwave was to become — "Ponytail" takes us into a surreal, echoing memory palace of sound — and groovy spoonerist Com Truise (Seth Haley), who soaks us with "Glawio".

Coined in July 2009 by Carles, a blogger for Hipster Runoff, chillwave — aka glo-fi aka hypnagogic pop — has spread like digital lichen across the world wide web and currently occupies a unique if hazy corner of the synthpop/electronic galaxy. For some, the genre is a bit of a joke, a stew of over-processed ambience; for others it's a vital reflection of the constantly morphing times in which we live . . . but wherever you stand in the chillwave debate, and however you rate its chances of survival, these Essentials reveal a mellow, lo-fi, chopped-and-screwed version of the electronic '80s — prepare your ears for dense cloaks of reverb, as the crystalline precision of synthpop is dulled by fuzzy edges to spacey, soporific effect. From genre pioneers Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti and Panda Bear, to superstars Toro y Moi and Memory Tapes, this is chillwave.