(Credits: Far Out / Press)
Sun 29 June 2025 1:00, UK
While indie rock has become somewhat of an amorphous term over the years, the sheer diversity within its various subgenres has managed to keep the term going and remain exciting to watch. Post-punk might as well be indie rock, and shoegaze could also be lumped in along with grunge and jangle pop as disparate branches of the same family tree, despite their intrinsic differences.
A lot of people might think of the 2000s as being the decade of indie sleaze and the landfill indie that emerged from the UK, where there wasn’t a great deal of artistic ambition and ideas were seemingly being recycled ad infinitum. However, there were a handful of bands and artists still pushing the envelope with experimental ideas, and while they may not have enjoyed the same mainstream success as acts like The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, some of the artists that emerged during this period are still plying their trade to this day.
One such act was New York trio Blonde Redhead, who remain just as inventive today as they were in their formative years, with albums such as Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons and Misery Is a Butterfly receiving significant critical and cult acclaim. But what exactly is it that makes them an indie rock act, considering their influences seemingly come from radically different places than some of the contemporaries that they were often mentioned alongside?
Japanese vocalist and keyboard player Kazu Makino and Italian twins Simone and Amedeo Pace all came from wildly different musical backgrounds, with the brothers both having come through music school studying jazz, and Makino having escaped home in Kyoto to pursue a career in music against the wishes of her parents. However, it was in this new setting in New York City that she found herself thrust into completely new scenes that she hadn’t previously been exposed to, and where she found a love of certain specific indie subgenres that would guide her towards the sound that Blonde Redhead would settle upon.
In a feature for Pitchfork, Makino described how when she initially landed in the city, she had no friends, and would attend plenty of shows in order to discover something new and exciting. “For the sake of having some kind of freedom, I got away,” she revealed. “I was listening to so many different things during this New York period until I hit a wall of noise sound. It was Lush and My Bloody Valentine. I went to those shows, and I just remember falling apart every time. Like, ‘Oh my god, this is what I want to do. I want this noise.’ Hearing them, my spectrum of who I am as an artist was complete. Blues and noise—that mix built who I am as an artist.”
While there were other sides to indie rock that were garnering attention simultaneously to the shoegaze explosion, Makino attests that these didn’t quite grab her in the same way or provide her with the drive and passion to pursue creating something similar. “The other side had Sonic Youth, Beck, Nirvana, bands I loved but definitely didn’t identify with,” she continued. “That wall of sound, which people call shoegaze, was very much up my alley. I rejected that other side because I didn’t think I would ever make it in that environment. It was very much based in white culture, like Royal Trux, or there was slacker rock where nothing about it was slacker; it was way too serious and eager. I knew I didn’t belong there.”
It might not be everyone’s definition of indie rock, but there’s no doubt that shoegaze’s rise to popularity in the ‘90s certainly paved the way for noisier indie bands in the subsequent decades. With Blonde Redhead adopting a shoegaze and dream pop-inspired approach to the genre, it’s clear that artists like My Bloody Valentine and Lush had a profound effect on them, especially with Makino, as she was on her journey of musical discovery.
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