High-flown ideas... San Francisco, home of the devoutly renegade Soma FM. Picture: AP
Where I grew up, the pioneers of the internet were all embittered hipsters out to stick it to The Man. So logic dictates that in our ongoing search for the strangest and sexiest stations on the whole entire internet that these war vets will have the stories to tell. Our next stop therefore, you won't find on no map - we're going deeper underground. An anonymous tip-off leads me to Soma FM. Soma FM. The webcaster grandly declares itself "listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative radio broadcasting from San Francisco". Named after Aldous Huxley's utopian pleasure drug, the station seethes with fanzine-standard angst. The About Us section solemnly recounts how Soma FM's founder Rusty Hodge started his online empire in 1999 "because there was nothing good to listen to on the radio", building up an unregulated empire of boutique house and techno streams called things like "Drone Zone" and "Groove Salad" until he fell foul of a government ruling that forced the station to pay $500 a day in royalties or shut down.
A deal was struck and Hodge bounced back, but he was sore, and the station now carries itself with the tortured indignation of Rosie and Craig off Coronation Street on a Reclaim The Streets march. All of which means I have high hopes for Soma. There are 12 channels, each of them with a carefully-manicured identity. I get rather immersed in Drone Zone's eerie Solyaris numbers until memory of the devastating ravages perpetrated on the world by "chillout music" kicks in.
So instead I decide to embrace my barely-suppressed inner goth and click on Doomed, described as "industrialised music for tortured souls". This serves up Tool, Joy Division and Throbbing Gristle as palatable neighbours to the likes of Deutsch Nepal and Annabelle's Garden. But still, everything feels a bit Oxfam Originals.
Actually, one of the most progressive things here is Hodge's own blinding session, Tag's Trance Tip, mixing up electro and breaks with Ulrich Schnauss, Alpha Conspiracy and Signaldrift. But despite this Soma has started to sound to me like British Airways' in-house radio.
The station, it strikes me, is just too tasteful to be truly rebellious; this is music for Yoga People. Witness the "Indie Pop Rocks" station, featuring a selection of undeniably pretty but doggedly mid-paced alternative hits matching the exact psychological profile of a Six Feet Under box set owner. Which means a playlist that includes The Radio Dept, Sufjan Stevens, Two Gallants, Doves and Clientele. Closer, really, to Lisa Loeb than is safe for any of us.
But on the way out I have a quick listen to the "Not-for-the-easily-offended Christmas In Frisco" channel, starring Santa Claus by Throwing Muses and 12 Pains Of Christmas by "Weird" Al Yankovic. And you know what? Despite Soma FM's gruff guerrilla attitude I actually feel a little gooey.
Listen For: Dance mixes precision-programmed for the Guardian reader.
Avoid If: You thought you'd signed up for an anarchists' alliance
