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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The music site equivalent of this song (Friends – I’m His Girl). Effortlessly cool, and a little bit sexy. With its ice-crisp site design, intelligent editorial and as curators of some of the best London club nights, The Line of Best Fit commands a considerable respect. Of all ‘blogs-turned-websites’, it’s our most visited.

And if you’re after a truly beautiful live session or two, you could do worse than getting lost in their sessions archive.

Editor and founder Rich Thane shared his independent inspiration behind the site:

“Anyone that knows me will know of my utter obsession with Scandinavian music – typically artists hailing from the glorious land of Sweden. Though, what is it about the country that originally sparked the interest? Like most things in life, it comes down to a single fleeting moment that – like the ‘butterfly effect’ theory – has an unprecedented effect on your life. Kind of like the first time I ever heard Bob Dylan. But that’s another story…

“It was Autumn 2006. The Line Of Best Fit had just started and was still in ‘blog’ mode. In fact, it didn’t even have its own independent URL. Sat at my desk, day job looming over me like a black cloud of doom, I tuned into the Gideon Coe show on BBC 6Music. Literally, as soon as I flicked on to the station, a joyous noise was bounding into my ears – euphoria, innocence, joy, sweetness…. Some would call it an epiphany. The band in question was Loney Dear who were in the studio performing a live take of their single ‘The City, The Airport’. I recall being completely stunned and – pretty much immediately – devoured the complete discography which, at the time, consisted of two albums available only through the band direct (‘Citadel Band’ and ‘River Fontana’) plus ‘Sologne’ which had just been released by UK label Something In Construction.

“As is my nature, I couldn’t stop there. Reasoning suggested that, if something as good as this was coming out of Sweden, then there must be similar artists I could get equally obsessed over. Of course, it didn’t take me long to discover the delights of Jens Lekman, The Honeydrips, The Embassy, The Tough Alliance… the list goes on. As The Line Of Best Fit grew in stature, so did my involvement with the Swedish music industry. Over the years I’ve been involved on a consultancy based level to some incredible artists, not to mention had the pleasure of product managing releases for Service label (home to Jens and ex-home to Tough Alliance and Studio) and Force Majeure (responsible for Museum Of Bellas Artes and Bandjo).

“I still get the same kick from discovering new Swedish artists on a daily basis… The country is so rich and diverse – honest and open. The whole experience has been – and continues to be – hugely rewarding on so many levels. I owe a lot to Loney Dear, it would seem.”