Independents’ Week is the perfect time to pay tribute to all of the places that we take inspiration from; all of the places we scour for new music. We get hundreds of tracks uploaded to amazingtunes.com every day (and we listen to them all) but we regularly go looking for new music too. We thought it only fair to highlight those places where we consistently find mind-blowingly great stuff.

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Another blog turned full-on website, The 405 is an online culture magazine, and perhaps one of the most hard working out there. Most days we find ourselves getting lost in the sheer volume of quality daily updates. They hook you in with an interesting feature and half an hour later, you’re still there discovering something completely new.

The 405 New Music team recently hijacked our blog with three of their most exciting new acts and it was through this that we discovered the incredible Saskatchewan and so, almost for this alone, our list wouldn’t be complete without them.

Founder Oliver Primus shared his inspiration with us:

“The first thing that pops up into my mind is the fine city of Norwich. I grew up there, saw my first gig there, had my first kiss there, bought a million CDs there and one place in particular that will always have a special place in my heart is the Norwich Arts Centre. It’s a beautiful place, run by wonderful people, and they always put on great gigs when I was a teenager (and I’m sure they still do now). The venue also housed a lot of shows by Wombat Wombat, who are complete legends in Norwich, so the place was pretty much my second home for many years.

“My fondest memory of the venue was seeing Jetplane Landing there for the first time; they played an amazing set, and afterwards headed straight to the merch area to talk to their fans. The main man, Andrew Ferris, epitomises the DIY work ethic that will always be at the center of what I do. From his work in the band, all the way through to setting up Smalltown America, the man always does it with a smile on his face. So in celebration of independent music I salute the Norwich Art Centre, Wombat Wombat and Andrew Ferris.”

Website: The 405

Twitter: @the405