Regina Spektor – Far (2009)

My ex-girlfriend didn't really share my musical taste. She particularly didn't like female indie singers. As I was actively discouraged from listening to them at home back then, I didn't really discover all the amazing musicians and bands out there. Around 2009 I started to rebel this by actively finding new interesting female artists. Incidentally, one year later we split up. Regina Spektor was one of the first ones I discovered after my draught. Of course I had listened to other great female artists before and during the relationship, but this was a time when I remember deliberately deciding to discover more indie female artists. My friend at the time was writing a music blog where he introduced Far by Regina Spektor as one of the best albums of the year. I listened to it once and bought it the next day. Since then, I've also discovered all the great other albums by her.

Jonathan Wilson – Fanfare (2013)

I consider myself something of an explorer in music and I try to find new bands and artists all the time. This means that I very rarely get really excited about anything new anymore. It feels like very few artists or bands can really make a lasting impression on me. Jonathan Wilson is one of the exceptions in the recent years. I have been listening to his albums a lot in the last few years. Fanfare was the first album of his that caught my attention and I liked it straight away, but it took me quite a long time to start actually loving it. Wilson makes quite complex songs that can reveal new perspectives even after years of listening. He's really retro in some ways, but at the same time the songs sound very unique and you can't really pinpoint any particular artist or band he sounds like. But it's clear he knows his history of pop music.

The Phoenix Foundation – Fandango (2013)

I don't know that many bands from New Zealand, but the ones I know tend to be quite cool. The Phoenix Foundation plays modern indie pop rock with some psychedelia icing. The more forward their career has progressed, the more they've introduced some electronic elements in their music, but it hasn't become the main thing in their music, which I think is really good. It's just brilliantly produced indie pop with some interesting sounds. Fandango is a double album even though there are not that many songs on it. It's just that it has quite a few long songs on it. This is something I like about the album. Long tracks give room to experiment on interesting things. I've listened to some of the band's earlier albums and even if there are some excellent songs there as well, I think I'm bold enough to say that Fandango is their best album.

Lightspeed Champion – Falling Off the Lavender Bridge (2008)

Lightspeed Champion is also one of those artists that I found from the Indie compilation album I bought at the Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill back in 2010 when I was just visiting London. Lightspeed Champion is a pseudonym of Devonté Hynes, who later became to perform under the name Blood Orange. I feel like Lightspeed Champion couldn't be much different from Blood Orange. Where Blood Orange is electronic, rhythmic and vey much music for the young millennials, Lightspeed Champion draws its influences from older musical styles, such as baroque pop and alternative folk. I guess you might say that he has moved with his times, since this kind of folky indie rock was very popular back in 2008 whereas the more dancing-oriented electronic music saw a new rise in the 10s.

The Cure – Faith (1981)

I first liked just the hit songs by The Cure. Boys Don't Cry and Friday I'm In Love and similar kinds of melodic hit songs. I didn't fully understand the appeal in bleak and dark gothic rock that had very little in terms of melodies. I had to first find the brilliance of Joy Division to understand The Cure. This music is all about darkness and the aesthetics are drawn from horror film imagery. It very much depends on my mood what I think about The Cure. Sometimes their music may sound very crushing to me, while sometimes I can completely lost myself into their melancholic and industrial sound. I feel like, if I'm already feeling down, I can't listen to them, because it takes me deeper into despair. This is definitely not something that will lift your spirits and make you feel confident with yourself. This is something where you can explore the deepest emotions of human beings.

Yo La Tengo – Fade (2013)

It took me some time to get into Yo La Tengo's music. I started hearing about them at the latter half of the 00s, but at first, I didn't see what was so great about them. I felt like the songs didn't have proper melodies and even the sounds could've been more explosive. Nowadays I almost think that these are precisely the strengths of the band. Yo La Tengo's music is all about the mood. They build up their songs really long and because of the quiet bits, when the music suddenly does reach certain intensity, you can really feel it. I still do like their psychedelic almost Kraut-rock type songs the most though. Yo La Tengo is definitely the kind of music that goes sounds and improvisation first, not compositions first. I've only grown to love this approach fairly recently. I always used to think of music just as a mix of melodies and lyrics, at the expense of sounds and mood.

Handsome Furs – Face Control (2009)

Handsome Furs was a duo consisting of Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and Alexei Perry, now ex-wife of the former. There are clear similarities between Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs, but where Wolf Parade is a more traditional indie rock band, Handsome Furs relies on electronic sounds and can be more described as electropunk. Their debut album was named Plague Park after a park in Helsinki, Finland, under which there is a mass grave of people who died of plague. Face Control is more influenced by the couple's travels in rest of Eastern Europe. The title Face Control refers to the nightclub policies in Russia where only attractive people are allowed in. Boeckner was fascinated about how post-communist Eastern Europe adopted some blatant forms of hyper-capitalism. I guess to compensate for some of the luxuries they missed for the first halves of their lives.

Immaculate Machine – Fables (2007)

I found this band when I was compiling a list of bands and artists from British Columbia in Canada for my music geography blog some years ago. I had never heard of this band but it hit me immediately. They play energetic indie rock with excellent melodies. In a way, they sound a lot like another Canadian band, The New Pornographers. In fact, they did tour with The New Pornographers at one point in their career and as a result, Catherine Kalder joined them as a member. This band also has male and female vocals taking turns and singing harmonies. The sounds are really great on this album. They're really skilfully crafted but at the same time it doesn't sound like the instruments have been hidden under much studio trickery. You can hear that there's an aim to use interesting instruments when it's possible, but it doesn't sound fake.