Anyone who says music isn’t as good today as it once was just isn’t paying attention. The global scope of the digital age has made it easier than ever to find interesting artists from around the world melding genres and otherwise pushing the constraints of popular music. Unfortunately, many of the most exciting artists aren’t the pop stars you hear on FM radio, but rather the independent musicians toiling away at small venues around the nation in between intimate studio releases. Not all of them will make it big, but here are a few of the modern independent artists we think might gain some kind of mainstream attention in 2017. They certainly deserve to.

Moses Sumney

Moses Sumney knows how to use the range of his emotive voice to get a listener’s attention. Often it’s all he needs to create a melody that’s not only memorable, but also unforgettable for its emotional resonance. In concert and on his scattered single releases, Sumney creates fascinatingly evolving beats by looping his own voice ad infinitum, then delicately croons confessional lyrics on top of them. The stripped-back sound of some tracks might be labeled folk, but the crucial element that makes Sumney stand out is soul. The LA-based songwriter conveys more soul, more impassioned feeling, in a single track than most artists manage in a full album. Now we’re just waiting to see what he can do with a full album of his own.