Aaron Axelsen of FLOOD FM, courtesy.

When ALT 105.3, previously Live 105, laid off music director and DJ Aaron Axelsen a year ago, it wasn’t a question of if he would be back on the radio, but when and where. That question was answered when he and music news publication FLOOD announced FLOOD FM in February, and the streaming station is now live on the (digital) air.

“It’s a dream format of mine, an indie-driven music endeavor,” Axelsen said in a call a week into his new job. “The currents of FLOOD FM mirror going to a music festival, where there’s a diverse cross-pollination of so many different sounds.”

During his 23 years at Live 105, he was the first to play everyone from Coldplay to Arcade Fire and Billie Eilish on commercial radio. But while he plans to continue to introduce up-and-coming musicians, the “commercial radio” part has changed. While that means he’s no longer floating through the air to every radio in the Bay Area, it also takes away a lot of limitations and restrictions.

“I’m taking some of the elements of Live 105, the successful artists and the successful programming strategies,” he said. “I think commercial radio can be very insular. You get very genre-specific. You’re always going to be bound by ratings and Wall Street. So that might sometimes limit your artistic vision because it’s your job to deliver ratings. You have to straddle art and commerce now. But this endeavor is purely artistic. Yeah, we want listeners, but as of now it’s purely an artistic venture.”

It also means he can expand from alt-rock and electronic music—he’s bringing his popular show “Subsonic” with him in the move—to include new soul, Britpop, folk rock, chillwave and hip-hop. The playlist won’t include all hip-hop, but rather what Axelsen calls “progressive hip-hop,” or hip-hop with an art element that expands the parameters of the genre. That includes Yves Tumor, Mykki Blanco and Run the Jewels, for example

Despite the variety of sounds, he said the station will be rooted in ’00s music similar to what he books at Popscene, his indie San Francisco nightclub that he still manages. He said he feels alternative radio has ignored that audience demographic entirely.

In straying from the radio norm, he said that he’s building something new and different. While he listened to a lot of NPR stations across the country for inspiration, it doesn’t match what they do, either.

“For the music mix that we’re presenting, I feel it’s pretty unique,” Axelsen said. “I don’t know if anyone is bringing this style, this formula to the table. We have the right percentage of new music discovery, the right percentage of familiar music. I think there was an opening, a niche, a gap to fill. I think we’ve created a special music mix that fills this voice. I hope.”

While FLOOD FM is still new, its managers have a long-term goal to add features and daily on-air personalities. Currently, in addition to Axelsen himself from 2 to 6 p.m. on weekdays, the second hire was Leslie James, formerly of CD 102.5 in Columbus, on the air from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. They’re still looking for morning and night personalities.

The station is also adding specialty shows, many of which will also be available as podcasts. In addition to Subsonic, there will eventually be a punk rock show and a hip-hop show. On May 2, it will formally unveil its first specialty show, FLOOD Flashback Sundays, which will include 24 hours of ’80s, ’90s and early ’00s.

Beyond all that, Axelsen is also keeping in mind that he’s no longer limited to the reach of Bay Area radio towers.

“It’s exciting that we can reach a community of music fans on an international level. We broadcast across North America, the U.K., Australia. We have a very wide platform and a big playing field,” he said. “It’s exciting to work on a global level. I’ve always been market-specific. It’s fun to bring music and art and culture on a global level. It’s an exhilarating change.”

He said that FLOOD FM cast a very wide net for its next on-air personalities, and bringing on DJs from the U.K. or Australia isn’t out of the question to reach listeners in their own time zones. It’s part of a long-term strategy to keep growing FLOOD FM into something more than he’s had the opportunity to do before.

“We’re building a music brand that hopefully people will love and will spend a lot of time with, not just tune in and out when they drive in to work in the morning and back home in the afternoon,” he said.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.