About · How picks get made
One person, one region, one playlist.
Upper Left Indie is a one-person music project helping more people discover independent artists from across the Northwest. The playlist stays short, the archive keeps growing, and every artist page points listeners directly to the artist.
How a track gets picked
Step 1
It arrives
Almost everything starts as a submission. Anyone can send one, it is free, and there is no account to make.
Step 2
I listen
There is no panel, paid placement, or algorithm deciding what gets added. I work through the submissions myself and choose the tracks that fit the playlist. I can’t always reply to everyone, but submitting is free and every pick is my own.
Step 3
It goes on the active playlist
The active playlist is deliberately kept short and current, so recent releases and new submissions always have room.
Step 4
It moves to the archive
After a song has had its run, it moves to the archive playlist rather than disappearing. That is what keeps the front door open for the next artist.
The region
What “upper left” means here
Submissions are open to artists across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, and the wider Northwest orbit. The directory is a record of who has actually been played, so a handful of artists in it sit outside those lines — usually because the music arrived from someone with roots in the region.
Consent
Artists opt in to being featured
An artist page is only created when the artist ticks the box asking for one and provides their own Bandcamp address. The 90 artists in the directory are there because they asked to be, not because they were scraped into it.
Where the money goes
Not through this site.
There is no store here, no player of our own, and no cut taken from anything an artist sells. Every artist links to their own Bandcamp, and that is deliberately the only place to buy their music. Tips to the project are a separate, smaller ask that keeps submissions free.
Have a question, a correction, or an artist to pitch? Get in touch, or send a track.