I became obsessed with Every Noise At Once, the Glenn McDonald-created, Spotify-associated genre database, back in 2022. While the best way to use the site might’ve been to meet new-to-you musical styles from all over the world, I immediately loaded up their playlist for lo-fi indie. I’ve been drawn to homespun, fuzzy, sentimental indie rock/pop since I was a teenager in the bedroom pop boom days, so I wanted to see what the tech world considered “lo-fi indie.” There were some big names like Mac DeMarco and Alex G mixed with unsung heroes of my ’10s youth like Hello Shark and Cyberbully Mom Club. The Microphones and Duster hits were interspersed between They Are Gutting A Body Of Water and Feeble Little Horse tracks. The playlist was an endearing, genre-agnostic tour of scratchy indie, ranging from bedroom pop to screamo, that felt like it had some kind of stylistic or spiritual connection even with its extensive differences.
