to be continued

• INDIE FOLK ✧

Indie-folk emerged during the early 21st century, when songwriters from the indie rock community began taking their cues from folk music. Acoustic artists helped lay the genre's brickwork during the '90s, but it wasn't until the following decade that indie folk truly took hold, with record labels devoting ample support to the genre. As the 2000s progressed and more indie-folk artists appeared, the genre grew to encompass a wide range of music, from the neo-Celtic folk of the Decemberists to the Appalachian harmonies of Fleet Foxes. Other groups, including genre kingpin Iron & Wine, embraced such variety in their own music, jumping from lo-fi acoustic ballads to lush electric rockers without ever truly exiting the indie-folk camp. Despite their ties to the folk community, however, most bands frequented traditional rock venues instead of coffeehouses, a characteristic that distinguished them from contemporary folk groups.

• INDIE POP ✧

Indie rock's more melodic, less noisy, and relatively angst-free counterpart, Indie Pop reflects the underground's softer, sweeter side, with a greater emphasis on harmonies, arrangements, and songcraft. Encompassing everything from the lush orchestration of chamber pop to the primitive simplicity of twee pop, its focus is nevertheless more on the songs than on the sound, and although both indie pop and indie rock embrace the D.I.Y. spirit of punk, the former rejects punk's nihilistic attitude and abrasive sonic approach.

• LOW-FI ✧

During the late '80s and early '90s, lo fidelity became not only a description of the recording quality of a particular album, but it also became a genre onto itself. Throughout rock & roll's history, recordings were made cheaply and quickly on substandard equipment. However, the term refers to a breed of underground indie rockers that recorded their material at home on four-track machines. Most of this music grew out of the American underground of the '80s, as well as a handful of British post-punk bands. Often, lo-fi bands fluctuated from simple pop and rock songs to free-form song structures to pure noise and arty experimentalism. Even when groups kept the songs relatively straightforward, the thin quality of the recordings, the layers of tape distortion and hiss, as well as the tendency toward abstract, obtuse lyrics made the music sound different and left of center. Initially, lo-fi recordings were traded on homemade tapes, but several indie labels released albums on vinyl. Several groups small cult followings within the American underground, but by 1992, groups become popular cult acts in America and Britain with their willfully noisy, chaotic recordings. A few years later, Liz Phair and Beck helped break the lo-fi aesthetic into the mainstream, albeit in a more streamlined fashion.