Danish indie collects the Copenhagen-centred alternative-rock, dream-pop, post-punk, and electronic-indie streams that emerged from the 2000s onward. What ties them together is a low-saturation Nordic mix, an unafraid approach to arrangement, and a career strategy oriented from day one toward the international critical circuit (Pitchfork, The Wire, Fact, Boomkat). Mew (formed 1994, international breakthrough with Frengers in 2003), Efterklang (2001, ambient / orchestral crossover), and WhoMadeWho (2003, electronic-punk fusion) formed the 2000s trio; Iceage (2008, post-punk) and When Saints Go Machine (2007, electronic soul) joined in the 2010s. Ensembles run three to five people; Copenhagen's Vega club and Roskilde Festival are the two anchor venues.

The starting point was Mew, formed in Elsinore in 1994. Jonas Bjerre's distinctive falsetto and complex meter changes carried Frengers (2003) into the UK indie chart, and the band settled into the Radiohead / Sigur Rós tier of Nordic art-rock. Efterklang, formed in Copenhagen in 2001 around Rune Mølgaard, Casper Clausen, Mads Brauer, and Thomas Husmer, combined ambient textures with orchestral instrumentation and by 2010's Magic Chairs had signed to Berlin's 4AD (the same home as The National and Bon Iver).

Mew's Jonas Bjerre sings in an almost Mickey Mouse–high falsetto, and this sits over complex 7/8 or 5/4 meters. The riff of 'Am I Wry? No' would sound broken by rock's standards, and that structural strangeness is what caught the generation's ear. Iceage's Elias Bender Rønnenfelt sings flat and tense, and 'New Brigade' captures the moment a seventeen-year-old post-punk band absorbed Joy Division and The Fall wholesale. Efterklang's 'Modern Drift' works in the opposite direction: strings and Casper Clausen's floating vocal accrete gently. Three Copenhagen bands, three completely different directions.

Start with Mew's 'Am I Wry? No' (2003) for the clearest exposure to the falsetto-plus-odd-meter formula. Then Iceage's 'New Brigade' (2011) for the contemporary post-punk revival. Efterklang's 'Modern Drift' (2010) is the gentler entry for listeners drawn to strings-and-electronics. When Saints Go Machine's 'Love and Respect' (2013, feat. Killer Mike) shows the Nordic reading of electronic soul. Late night, dim room, headphones.

When Iceage released New Brigade in 2011, the four members were still in high school with an average age of seventeen. When Rob Young of The Wire named them among the year's best albums, they were skipping class to tour. Over five records they matured through post-punk into country and gospel territory (Seek Shelter, 2021). Mew's lineup, formed in the Elsinore high-school rehearsal room, has been almost unchanged in thirty years apart from Bo Madsen's 2015 departure. Efterklang's home base is now Berlin, not Copenhagen — Casper Clausen relocated in the mid-2010s.