In 2001, the jarring opening chords of The Strokes' 'Last Night' finally seduced the music industry away from nineties grunge and into the passionate affair with angular indie pop that it had been toying with for quite some time. Now it would seem that this very public infatuation, which has moved from The Vines to the The Hives, from The Libertines to The Fratellis, is now going through empty motions of a long expired lusting. Prior to the 2000's, there was an intriguingly refreshing overlap between "mainstream" and "indie" music genres pioneered by bands like The Smiths and The Cure. Now, it would seem that the two have fused: indie rock has become the synonym for over produced, over advertised, oversexed monotony.

While indie music has been busy pulling on its skinny jeans and adjusting its trilby hat to a jaunty angle, something more organic has been developing away from the jangly electrics. The bright young nouveau folkies took their cue as the indie clique began to stumble a couple years ago. Acts like Band of Horses and The Arcade Fire began to experiment with music of a folky, albeit electrified, persuasion. There has been a distilling and deconstruction towards what is now the new alternative: folk music played by talented musicians in its most intimidatingly authentic form. In a world of such openly accepted superficiality, this music represents a return to a certain spontaneity in live music. Folk music is still characterised by its fundamental principle: so long as the instruments and talent are present, the potential flexibility of performance is boundless. It does not require a dressing room, an extravagant sound system or a rakish bass player named Antoine.

Edinburgh has embraced this movement and become a positive hub of underground folky happenings. On 4 September, Edinburgh's Liquid Rooms hosted back-porch Americana folk band The Old Crow Medicine Show. The American band, with banjo, fiddle and harmonica aplenty, played to a sell-out audience of mostly under-25s. A few weeks and another sell-out show later came the staggeringly brilliant Wisconsin Quartet, Bon Iver, touring their debut album For Emma, Forever Ago offering glorious folk harmony and refreshingly intense lyrics. One glance at upcoming shows in Edinburgh and Glasgow for the coming months and the young folkster dominance is clear, from King Creosote and Seth Lakeman to songbird Laura Marling and Venezuelan-American Devendra Banhart. While these acts are merely passing through, traditional pubs like the Royal Oak and Sandy Bells offer some of the most consistently raucous nights out in Edinburgh, with a fusion of old world and nouveau folk. It is right here that the young, talented and bearded plot their eventual domination.