In the final instalment of our underground music series, readers share the scenes that inspire them – whether it’s radical brass bands, queer punk or doom-metal Mormons in Salt Lake City
Thurston Moore, The Black Madonna and other underground musicians discuss how the scene continues to mutate – and why quantum physics is where today’s avant garde truly resides
YouTube, social media and even Bitcoin are allowing musicians to reject major labels and go it alone – but the industry is fighting back. Can artists use technology to stay truly independent?
Pioneered in the 1950s by musicians breaking the rules of jazz and composition, free improvisation is still as difficult – and potentially transcendent – as it ever was. A Guardian documentary takes you inside its world
Pioneered in the 1950s by musicians breaking free of rules around jazz and composition, free improvisation is still as difficult – and potentially transcendent – as it ever was. A Guardian documentary takes you inside its world
They have names like Live Burial and Thus Defiled and go to extreme lengths not to get big – or even heard. Our writer enters a place where everyone knows the difference between ‘depressive black metal’ and ‘depressive suicidal black metal’
From turbo-charged Eurodance in Newcastle to Pennine psychedelia and grime in Hull, the north of England keeps underground scenes thriving outside the glare of the mainstream. Welcome to five of the strangest
Sexed-up Canadian synthpop, Japanese junglism, ritualistic Finnish bear-hunting music … our writers pick treasures from the darkest corners of their record collections
Timberland hosts rap gigs. Princess Nokia makes films for Maybelline. And Red Bull is the new school of rock. Have brand partnerships destroyed counterculture? Or are they all that’s keeping it alive?
In the coming weeks, the Guardian is embarking on a survey of the underground in music – asking if it still exists in a world where everything is visible online, and if so, where
From bush doof to clowncore: your favourite underground music scenes