Oh my a top five… Thats a hard job to do.
You can always take a look at my audioscrobbler profile to check what it has as my top artist, but really that only counts the music on my computer and since most of music is on LPs and CDs its not very precise.
I can’t really list a top five but I can recommend some artists I’m currently using a lot of listening time to.
Mogwai - An instrumental post rock band from the Glasgow scene. They compose some really beautiful songs, its just layer upon layer of guitars, building up into the greatest symphony of noise and harmonies. Some songs to recommend would be “Auto Rock” of the “Mr Beast” Album and “Haunted by a freak” of the “Happy Songs For Happy People” album.
Under Byen - A danish Electronica / Indie rock band. This might be a strange artist to recommend on an international forum since the lyrics are in danish. But they have done several shows around Europe and in New York, all with great reviews (David Fricke recommended them as his “favorite band of the year” to mention one) and an amazed audience.
The music is very experimental and consists of a large string section accompanying the more classics rock setup of guitars, bass and drums. This would definitely be worth your while to listen to, they have a few (all full lenght) mp3 on their website, its free and legal, so don’t worry about this…
oh I gotta go now… I might pop by this thread to write more, and maybe then try to get into the top 5 subject…
-Daniel