Just ask Skrillex. “Australia doesn’t get enough credit for being so ahead of the curve in knowing music and having so much great music coming out,” he told the Australian Associated Press recently. “There’s a sound that comes out of Australia that influences the world.”

In September of 2013, Flume, the most visible of these rising stars, called out the rapidly growing interest in the Aussie scene in a well-publicized Facebook post that served as a lightning rod for the hype. “I’m constantly getting asked in interviews about the ‘Australian sound’ and this new wave of producers,” he wrote. He went on to give a shout-out to several of them, including “big dogs” Chet Faker and Ta-Ku, along with L D R U, Wave Racer and Touch Sensitive. All of them have only gotten more attention in the months since.

As indicated in Flume’s post, the phenomenon has been tagged by fans and journalists as the ‘Australian Sound.’ It’s a pithy enough way to start talking about this stuff, but rather limiting, too. The thing is that the plethora of Aussie producers turning heads right now aren’t limited to just one sound. Flume’s lush, wonky trip-hop, Chet Faker’s gritty neo-soul, Anna Lunoe’s brassy melange of house and electro-pop, Peking DuK’s muscular electronica and the cheeky, hard-hitting EDM of Will Sparks and Joel Fletcher – on the surface anyway, these artists defy grouping into one category. It’s probably better to speak of a movement instead of a sound or a style (though there are identifiable strands). And when you start listing its many proponents, you realize it’s a startlingly robust movement.

They may all sound different, but they do share a common ambition, a common drive to navigate the oceanic distances, both literal and metaphorical, that separate them from the rest of the world. It used to be standard to refer to the “cultural cringe,” the in-built inferiority complex Aussies sometimes manifest when comparing themselves to Europeans or Americans.

This golden generation has almost entirely shaken that syndrome off, left it behind in the 20th century. They might be too young to even know it ever existed. Instead they embody the brashness and can-do spirit of the Lucky Country. In recent years, the nation’s booming economy – one of the world’s strongest – has augmented its famously great lifestyle, and the Australian music scene, always formidable, has become stronger than ever. Massive festivals, a thriving network of underground clubs and supportive broadcasters like triple j have over the years worked together to create a fertile breeding ground for young, world-class talent.

Regarded for its alternative rock for decades, in the mid-noughties Australia spawned a slew of indie-dance acts like Cut Copy and the Presets that became darlings overseas. Their adventurous combinations of house, rock, disco, new wave and more experimental sounds mark them as progenitors of the current school.

Soon a young generation weaned on newer forms like electro-house and glitch-hop took up the torch. During EDM’s rise to ascendancy, Tommy Trash was one of the first Australian artists to break out on the main-stage circuit with hits like “The End,” “Cascade” and his remix of deadmau5’s “The Veldt.”

On one hand it’s hard to tie in Trash’s fame and accomplishments – headlining slots at every major festival, Beatport-chart domination, Grammy nominations – with his nationality, especially since he’s been based in the States for some time. Perhaps in that way he’s like the many Aussie Hollywood stars whose antipodean roots are transparent. But with his unkempt demeanor and brash attitude, he also embodies the classically Aussie “larrikin” spirit, and he’s served as somewhat of a godfather and benefactor to his younger countrymen.

Trash’s success in the biggest markets of EDM has been matched by the unabashedly flashy electro-house twins Nervo, originally from Melbourne, also based in the States. Likewise the progressive anthems of Dirty South, ‘seizure music’ of Knife Party (born out of the dissolution of pioneering drum & bass group Pendulum) and the electro-house of The Aston Shuffle need little introduction. All are legit stars who, like Trash, have topped Beatport’s charts and regularly appear on DJ Mag’s Top 100, among many other accolades.

Now a newer generation are now busting down the door with a more distinctive sound. And the name first and most often mentioned is Flume, also known as Harley Streten. One of the biggest names in Australian music at the age of 23, Streten was discovered by Sydney independent label Future Classic as a teenager. The glitchy but emotive and absurdly melodic tracks that soon followed, such as “Holdin’ On” and “Insane,” established a massive buzz for the kid prodigy, but also helped consolidate the ‘Australian Sound’ and bring it to the mainstream. His boyish good looks helped make him the face of the the new sound.

When Flume’s debut album dropped in 2012, it lit up the Australian charts, and soon other hemispheres took notice. Since then he’s toured the world, partnered with Intel on a recent ad campaign and remixed the likes of Arcade Fire and Disclosure (“You & Me”).

Streten has diversified his sound with What So Not, a project with fellow Sydney producer Emoh Instead, a big name in his own right with chunky trap cuts like “Why Can’t You (Say So…)” If possible, What So Not has opened up even more in-roads for Streten. Tracks like “Jaguar” and “Touched” focus on somewhat edgier, more peaky 4/4 and trap sounds while retaining Flume’s instinct for melody. “You hear a lot of influence from people now putting out records that sound like they’re taking influence from What So Not,” said Skrillex (who, in turn, collaborated with the duo on “Goh”).

Melbourne-based singer/producer Chet Faker (nee Nick Murphy) also counts himself among Flume’s friends and collaborators (“Drop the Game”). He’s followed closely on his mate’s heels with the success of his full-length debut, Built on Glass, also released on Future Classic. Faker’s blue-eyed electronic soul maneuvers – he wrote, produced, played and sang nearly everything on the album, James Blake-style – were brought to world attention by the viral success of his 2012 cover of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity.” On tracks like “Talk Is Cheap” and “1998,” Faker makes the sheer musicality of the Australian sound apparent, along with its obsession with ’90s hip hop, house and R&B.

Future Classic have seen their stock rise geometrically along with Flume’s and Faker’s since 2012. Their roster reads like a who’s who of the Aussie wave, an embarrassment of riches that includes Touch Sensitive, Flight Facilities, Basenji, Charles Murdoch, Hayden James, Jagwar Ma, Seekae and Wave Racer. In one way or another, each of these artists embodies the Australian sound as popularly understood – check outstanding tracks like Flight Facilities’ “With You,” Touch Sensitive’s remix of James’ “Permission To Love,” Murdoch’s “Dekire” and Seekae’s “The Stars Below.”

It’s not limited to Future Classic, of course. There are a dizzying host of quality acts amassed for the Aussie takeover: Yolanda Be Cool, L D R U, Willow Beats, Kilter and Cosmo’s Midnight to name just a few in the vanguard. The scene is not confined to the Sydney-to-Melbourne axis, either, as witnessed by the ascendance of Perth-based Ta-Ku, Adelaide’s Motez and Newcastle young gun Just a Gent. KLP (Kristy Lee Peterson) and Rainbow Chan are two young Sydneysiders claiming a share of the movement for women.

If we could genetically engineer the perfect circa-2015 Australian track, it would perhaps sound something like this: 110 BPM, glitchy breakbeats layered by trappy polyrhythms, catchy but melancholy keyboards melodies drenched with absurdly swooshy pads, the whole thing overlaid by distorted white-girl R&B vocal stabs. A disco-ish 120 BPM remix would also feature on the release.

But then you’d be missing a lot of the terrific variety and real innovation in the scene. Ta-Ku, for one, has earned huge acclaim carrying the torch of the experimental hip hop of J. Dilla and Madlib, combining it with electronica and indie tracks like “Make You Wanna” and “Hands in the Rain” to produce a truly unique sound championed by the likes of Gilles Peterson. His remix of Flume’s “Left Alone” (featuring Chet Faker) could top a playlist of quintessential Aussie tracks, albeit in a harder, funkier vein than some of the others.

Other standouts from the next gen include the moody dance-pop of “Snare” by Cosmo’s Midnight (featuring Wild-Eyed Boy); Motez’s hyperkinetic “Ride Roof Back”; the bright, uptempo electronica of KLP’s remix of Kilter’s “They Say”; and the Cut Copy-esque indie of “Take Me” by RÜFÜS. Yolanda Be Cool’s “A Baru in New York” featuring Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, providing a welcome dose of Australian cultural heritage to the mix. (Don’t miss Flume’s epic remix.)

You could say the career path of Canberra-bred duo Peking DuK neatly encapsulates the recent history of Australian electronic music. Though they scored big dancefloor hits with cheeky 4/4 bangers like “Bingo Tripping” and “I Love to Rap,” they crashed the commercial-radio party when they transitioned to moody, midtempo song-oriented electronica with the hits “High” (featuring Nicole Millar) and “Take Me Over” (featuring SAFIA). With accessible tunes to go with their pranksterish rock-star personas, they’ve been deemed ready for the big time; recently they were pursued by American major labels as if they were the second coming of the Beatles – a potential sign that the Australian wave is about to become a tsunami.

Anna Lunoe is, along with Trash, one of the more prominent of several Australian producers who’ve made the move across the pond to the States in general and Los Angeles in particular (enough of them that in 2012 inthemix published a feature about the “Australian invasion”). The versatile DJ, producer and singer’s garage-inflected, radio-friendly tracks like “All Out” and “Breathe” are rounded out by collabs with fellow Aussies Flume (“I Met You”) and Touch Sensitive (“Real Talk”). She more recently moved into banger territory with “Bass Drum Dealer” on Skrillex’s OWSLA label. (It should be clear by now that Skrillex is on board with the Aussies.) Other Oz-to-LA transplants include electro-house don Bass Kleph and Melbourne-bred indie-electronica outfit Miami Horror.

Running counterpoint to the moody, melodic trend of the day is the white-hot sensation known as the ‘Melbourne Sound’ or ‘Melbourne Bounce.’ This twist on electro-house has made a group of producers led by Will Sparks and Joel Fletcher some of the most sought-after talent in the world. Characterized by feral bass, amped-up horns, kinetic breakdowns and hip-hop samples, the Melbourne Sound is nasty as it likes – and the kids love it. Sparks’ “Ah Yeah” is the defining track, but check out Orkestrated’s “Night Crawler” or “Swing,” Fletcher’s collab with Savage, to get amongst it.

A deeper spectrum of underground house and techno forms the beating heart of club and warehouse-party scenes in Australia’s state capitals. Standout producers include veteran Melbourne jock Tornado Wallace and Adelaide funkmeister Inskwel. Baby-faced Andras Fox shows a Chris Malinchak-like versatility with a spectrum of house, soul and vintage R&B flavors on tracks like “Your Life” and “Running Late.” Amongst Aussie house heads, Adelaide’s reclusive Cam Bianchetti is a true legend, having pioneered Australian-produced techno in the ‘90s as DJ HMC, and now churning out some of the world’s most sought-after bootleg disco edits as Late Nite Tuff Guy.

“We have it so fucking good in Australia,” Flume told The Guardian. He set the ceiling high in his rallying Facebook post when he called for his fellow Aussies to take over the industry the way the French did with electro-house in the late noughties. Early indicators suggest that could actually be happening. It’s probably going too far to say that maybe soon the cultural cringe might be reversed – but there’s little doubt the Australian sound(s) are here to stay.