By his own admission, the electro-rock powerhouse named Nathan J. Whitey is a lazy, alcoholic bookworm. “I’ve spent most of my life either drunk or reading, but I learned how to play instruments in between,” he says, before detailing his new regime. “I drank nothing but Jack [Daniels] for years, but I realized it was making me fat and stupid. I’ve switched to vodka and fruit juice now, so I’m constantly hydrating myself and pumping myself full of vitamins while I’m drinking.” He pauses, watching my black Sharpie commit his words indelibly to lined paper. “But don’t make me sound like a health nut.”

No danger there. With nearly two years of touring–and a nigh constant hangover–under his belt, East London-based Whitey is finally living the rock ‘n’ roll dream his tracks promise. Though most of his music–from remixes for Chromeo, Soulwax, and Bloc Party to his April debut, The Light At The End of The Tunnel Is A Train (1234)–was made solo, it has a fuck-off swagger that sounds as if an entire sweaty band is trapped in the room with you. Pairing the metronomic garage rock stomp of the White Stripes or The Hives with electronic touches (a vocoded vocal here, tweaky effects there), Whitey has created the purest definition yet of electro-rock, rendering arguments over the differences between “dance rock” and “rock dance” moot.

“When I was young, I was in really shit guitar bands and then I got disenchanted with that,” says Whitey of the genesis of his sound. Ditching Iggy Pop rip-offs for rave (a word he hates), he had a string of “rubbish” breakbeat hardcore records released between 1990 and 1995, but continued to listen to The Pixies, Mudhoney, and Fugazi. In 1997, he decided to once and for all combine his influences. “There are incredible sonic similarities between rock and electronic music: how they crash and build up again and surge,” he explains. “It seemed perfectly natural to use both.”

Using other people’s studios–often between two and eight in the morning–Whitey crafted his album tracks in one take each. Amazingly, they sound perfectly natural when performed live by his black-clad band, who wail on guitars and drums while Whitey stands in the middle looking like he raided Elvis Costello’s closet: pork pie hat, black suit, and black tie loosened in a louche fashion. Sometimes balls-out, occasionally deadpan, he makes an interesting frontman. “I’m quite honest when I’m on stage,” he states. “If I’m tired/crashing horribly then you’ll see that, and if I’m excited/rising stiffly then it’s different. I like to just gradually get worked up.”

“The goal of the Boom Bap Project is to preserve the hip-hop culture through music,” proclaims MC Karim, known as Nightclubber Lang to those who have helped him and his Boom Bap comrades Destro and DJ Scene build a solid rap foundation in the underrated Pacific Northwest scene. “We came up with the name upon when we decided to make an album chock-full of hard beats and rhymes, true hip-hop shit. The name was not chosen as an homage to anyone or anything, but describes what you’re gonna get from us musically.”

The Boom Bap Project might still be a work-in-progress, having released only its second album, called Reprogram, in the new millennium. But the self-described “true-school” trio still boasts quite the game-tight CV. Not only have all three heads done time as members of the kitchen-sink sonic collective Oldominion, but they’ve rocked the mic at the Olympics (in lily-white Salt Lake, of all places) and burned up stages alongside The Roots, Wu-Tang, Blackalicious, and many others. In other words, they’ve got their bases covered, especially now that indie-hop label Rhymesayers (home to Atmosphere and Brother Ali) has loosed Reprogram on a blinged-out landscape looking for a respite from hypermaterialism.

“Hip-hop, in our eyes, has lost the majority of its creativity and luster,” argues Karim, “but we haven’t been affected by the mainstream takeover of hip-hop culture, and neither has our music.”

That statement may ring strange, considering that Reprogram’s beat architects are none other than Seattle standouts Vitamin D and Jake One, whose stripped-down compositions have helped Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent, G-Unit, and many more mainstreamers explode. But Boom Bap Project is committed to its local, rain-swept scene, and is deeply invested in positioning a long-overdue spotlight on the Pacific Northwest’s thriving hip-hop environment.

“We rep Seattle to the fullest,” Karim adds. “Anyone who’s ever been there knows that. They know us, our crew Oldominion, Jasiri, Under the Needle, all the rest. We feel we’re making history here, [and the] light is beginning to shine on our region. Seattle has the best producers in hip-hop. Don’t sleep.”

Good advice, because BBP’s self-professed intention is to wake up the world, and Reprogram is their hate letter to the status quo. “People today are programmed from birth to go to school, get a 9-to-5, get married, have kids, and live by the rules,” says Karim. “But the careers that artists have chosen go against these standards and we aren’t going to buy into the program. We don’t need to follow those guidelines to be happy or successful in life.”

Germany’s Monika Enterprise arose from living rooms full of refugees. Label founder Gudrun Gut remembers “the Wohnzimmer [living room] scene” of 1997, when homespun venues were some of the only places for underground electronic artists to play in Berlin (as DJs were only welcome in so many techno clubs).

Speaking by phone from her Berlin office, Gut mentions that few labels were interested in developing new artists unless they were chart-bound or one-hit cash-ins. The time was right for building a shelter for those left out. “I started [Monika Enterprise] because I saw all of these artists in Berlin trying to find a place to play,” Gut says. “They played in living rooms; that’s where Monika came from.”

Eventually, huge lines to sit on the sofa sunk the scene, but Gut reminisces about post-techno maven Barbara Morgenstern playing the Vermona organ in Joe Tabu’s loft. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is fantastic!’” Gut relates. “It was the opposite of a big rock concert because they made it really quiet, really nice; somebody baked some cookies. We did it nice, warm–for the people and not for the industry.”

Gut has a history of doing things differently; a former keyboardist for industrial mavericks Einstürzende Neubauten, she later formed all-woman post-punk unit Malaria! (often thought to be Chicks on Speed’s godmothers). With Monika, a label named after her suicidal goldfish, she balances a sense of irreverence with a nurturing environment for artists who typically release comforting, slightly discordant, and often baffling post-techno. Such artists include Morgenstern, psychobilly electro-punks Cobra Killer, and post-rockers Contriva. Gut also runs the Moabit label, which has re-issued records by Malaria! and her other bands Miasma and Matador, and released tracks played on the celebrated Ocean Club radio show that she co-DJs with Berlin techno pioneer/The Orb collaborator Thomas Fehlmann.

Gut recently released 4 Women No Cry, an international compilation that gives 15 minute-plus showcases to four female bedroom electronic musicians/chanteuses: Tusia “TBA” Beridze, Rosario Blefari, Eglantine Gouzy, and Catarina Pratter. The women’s music ranges from lounge numbers possessed by Serge Gainsbourg’s ghost and narcotic lullabies to post-techno C-scans of the soul. “The music wants to be lived,” Gut says. “The own character of the artist stays in the foreground and in the back stands Monika and puts the light on them.”

When asked about what direction she wants to take Monika next, Gut has big dreams, literally. “Time takes me,” she gushes. “I don’t make this kind of business decision, but I’m dreaming of a big Monika house! It should look like an old grand hotel.”