Indietronica

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Indietronica, also known as indie electronic, indielectronica, indietronic, indietronics and lap-pop, is a music genre that combines indie rock with the sound of Early Electronics/Electronic Pioneers, Krautrock, IDM and glitch.

While it is believed that the genre was born in the late 1990s, an example of which being The Notwist's esteemed album Shrink (1998), the 2002 compilation titled Indietronica Vol. 1 by Sónar Music solidified and popularized the term (which was first used deliberately in 2001 by the 'group' luna spark).

Recently, the genre has been further expanded by several crossover projects between indietronica and alternative hip hop artists, specifically between the Morr Music and anticon. labels.

1 Indietronica in the north of Europe
2 Notable artists
3 Record labels
4 References in popular culture
5 References
6 See also

[edit] Indietronica in the north of Europe

In the middle of the 90s the indietronica movement boomed in the Nordic countries. The style was partly a reaction to the cold, humorless and harsh industrial sounds of the 80s.

The aesthetic ideals of the movement can be summed up in three different inspirational sources.

A desire to return to the more melodic, humorous sounds of earlier acts such as Kraftwerk, Perry & Kingsley, Bruce Haack and other electronic pioneers.
The so called "8-bit Generation" was now old enough to have nostalgic feelings toward the sounds of game consoles such as the C64, Gameboy, NES and SMS. This gave birth to both the "Chip Music" scene and also had a huge influence on indietronica.
Fast-paced recording. During the 90s recording equipment became cheap enough and user-friendly enough that regular people could both afford and use it to great extent. The indietronica movement took advantage of this and aspired to introduce a more "live" feel to electronic music.

The tracks where often based on live jams and didn't sound too overworked. A band member from Fredrik Fleet a typical indietronica band of the time, summarized it as working under the motto "one night, one track". This was also connected to the desire to sound more like the pre-80s era of electronic music (as mentioned above).

A number of influential bands went on to reach international acclaim. The Norwegian group Röyksopp was originally considered part of the indietronica movement before hitting mainstream success and moving on to more traditional electronica. In Sweden, the band Pluxus came to embody the entire movement and gave rise to a number of copycat acts. The band started the label Pluxemburg which became a focal point for collaborations in the limited but very productive Nordic scene. Other important acts from Sweden include Monster & Maskiner, The Knife and Dr.Higgins. In Finland acts such as Aavikko and Nu Science where prominent.

[edit] Notable artists

[edit] Record labels

anticon.
Monika Enterprise
Morr Music
Plug Research
Rabid Records
Pluxemburg

[edit] References in popular culture

The online cartoon Homestar Runner has referenced indietronica in the Strong Bad Email geddup noise, in which The Cheat is shown playing his indietronic remix of the "Geddup Noise" at a nightclub, to emphasize its popularity.