Download mixes:
Just The Hits (Randy’s Top 20 Songs from SXSW 2010)
SXSW Radio 2010 (82 Songs from SXSW 2010)
It was a super solid SXSW. As the internet moves us all closer to the source, the emphasis is on seeing the bands you’ve been listening to last year rather than brand new discoveries. Nothing legendary happened, other than maybe seeing The XX in the smallest venue they’ll ever play again, but there were also almost no duds – tons of great music and live performances.
Highlights:
Bear In Heaven
The Wooden Birds
Explode Into Colors
Surfer Blood
The Drums
WhoMadeWho
Katie Stelmanis
Standard Fare
These Are Powers
The Antlers
The XX
Not only are there free days shows and night shows all week, now SXSW also starts on Sunday. WTF.
Octopus Project – I think they’ve been my first show for four out of the past five SXSWs. They rock. 4/5
Man or Astroman? – This intense surf band came back from the dead to play their first show in 13 years, and I was impressed with how current their music sounded and how driven their stage performance was, even without using their famous gauss machine much. 4/5
Body Language – Art disco thump and jubilant pop with island rhythms. Hot and sexy dance music performed with thick organic instrumentation. What other kind of music would be made by two white hipster keyboard dudes, a black girl singer, and an asian drummer? 5/5
INTERLUDE: I hadn’t heard much about chillwave (aside: genre substratification = barf) before SXSW, but Washed Out and Small Black seem to be high profile members, as is Memory Tapes who I didn’t see but learned after that it’s formed from remnants of one of my favorite bands of the past couple years: Hail Social. Anyway, get hip with the lingo, don’t call it “electro pop” or some dumb shit like I do below.
Washed Out – is one member of Small Black and apparently everyone who likes electro pop likes both. He used that sample loop pedal thing on his vocals to craft layers of crooning, sober vocals over his punchy Treasure Fingers style electro-disco. Very danceable, but somehow kind of plain. 3/5
Small Black - Dudes doing smooth dance music live with real instruments. A bit more hip than urgent, like many of the bands seemingly striving to be the next MGMT. 3/5
Bear In Heaven – The plodding synths are prominent in the recordings, but live the powerful vocals in the vein of Air Supply / Yes / Rush, the slices of crunchy guitar, and the acoustic drums composed like drum machine beats elevate the deadpan songs with a command and currency that’s unique and less obvious than sexy bands like The XX. It’s a creepy and beautiful 70’s revivalism from a band that’s fabulously hideous. 5/5
XYX – A total cumshot of distorted bass and flailing wild drums. Mexican duo, vocals lost in the slag. Energizing avant hardcore. 5/5
Blair – 90’s girl alt rock. Heartstring plucking pop. Competent but predictable. 3/5
Here We Go Magic – Layers of repeating simple rock instrumentation, structurally surreal like the Talking Heads. One of those new non-genre-except-maybe-rock bands. 4/5
You And Me – Two young Austin dudes. Very gritty punkish rockish. Awesomest when the drummer plays keyboards and drums at the same time while the singer’s keyboard is a crazy sludge of distorted bass. Like a fucking trashy LCD Soundsystem mixed with The Stooges. 4/5
Blessure Grave – A capable goth version of Blur, walls of Joy Division guitar slag. Crunchy like Interpol, doom voice. Songwriting all bundled up and screwed in. They looked nervous up there in their Hot Topic threads, though. 4/5
Hudson Mohawke – Impossibly loud electronic musician who picks up where Prefuse 73 left off, but way more broken. Absolute disregard for the subtle distinction between a delicate idm piece and a frenetic banger, never drops a steady rhythm but gets fists pumping regardless. We can peer down his unselfconscious trajectory to where music proceeds to white noise. 4/5
Miike Snow – Miike is incredibly intense and frowny and glam like some gay Scandanavian Zeus, lots of mic gripping and light footed stage theatrics, very articulate voicing. Recalling Hot Chip, a host of guys are up there hunched over synths like busy dwarves. Super live and even a bit sloppy, aggro sonics not found on the composed and buttoned-up pop album. The performance could use some rehearsal, but the songs continue to carry the day. 5/5
Real Estate - Totally competent indie rock, melancholy like Fleetwood Mac, a little southern swing, jangley and from Jersey. NPR said they were huge last week, but I don’t buy it. 3/5
Explode Into Colors – An aggro ESG, a !!! with zero production value, a less predictable Gossip. Fast dance punk drumming. Arty yelps and hot bass riffs. Unpretentious and fun and fantastic. 5/5
The Middle East - Australian folk rock with a bottlecap wizard and a dreamysweet Jim James voice. Stompy like a hoedown, delicate like a bird nest. Strong songs with layers of vocal harmony and some moments of Arcade Fire. 5/5
Peter Wolf Crier – Hollow body guitar and drums and two dudes with gym muscles and tattoos and polo shirts. Like the theme song to a nostalgic 80s sit-com. There’s a singer/songwriter vibe, but whereas mostly guys in that genre make music like an easy glide hand job 24/7, these guys seem legitimately willing to stab something. Emotional and elevated and punctuated. 4/5
CHLNGR - I say “chillinger,” but they say “challenger”. A totally unexpected and semi-workable hybrid of styles, or not even styles, I dunno. Lots of dub vibe from complicated echo effects. Two white dudes singing over sexy laid back black people music chopped up and spliced with phat LA electro beats. Saxophone and that weird keyboard you blow into. They aren’t doing anything in particular, but it’s loud and nerdy and intense. 4/5
jj – Turned out to be a chick with huge hair in a shawl sitting in a chair and singing over pre-recorded lush techno stuff, a prolific compilation of the short mix of her songs, a dozen or more. More serene than Tricky. Powerful and easy voice. Songs about drugs. Very estrogen-y. 3/5 for performance, but the music is a 4.
The Wooden Birds – Clean music with perfect restraint. Absolutely spotless live performance, characteristic of Andrew Kinney, made it transcendent, lush, full, and soft, like being in a chapel for calm highway grooves, this whole other aesthetic you didn’t know rock could be used for. The country ballad influence became obvious live. 5/5
Pattern Is Movement – Both the operatic singing and the look of the musicians brought to mind that creepy Teddy Bears’ Picnic shit, also the vague suspicion that the band is trying to drive you crazy. They did some blue-eyed soul R&B covers with their characteristic constant insane drumming which was pretty amazing, and I wish they’d make that band next. 4/5
The XX - They were pretty much what you saw on the video. Cold and serious, eyes closed, mouths parted, the percussion guy darting and ducking over his synths. Even more of a tease live. Solid performance with an unfortunately fucked up sound mix, probably some post-GZA fluke. The crowd was asinine and talked nonstop about how this was their favorite band, and I could barely see the stage through the wall of iPhone 3GSs.
Slaraffenland – A Danish band of cool dudes with interesting rhythms and seafaring chants. A saxophone. Really fresh without being gimmicky, not unlike WhoMadeWho’s earlier rock songs. 4/5
WhoMadeWho - They handily out dance-rock-ed every dance rock band I've ever seen. Their music is way more stylish and it all translates live, super tight performances and dynamic organic remixes. Given the sophistication of their albums, you wouldn’t suspect them to look like a mustachioed barbershop trio or assume they take themselves not at all seriously, although maybe that album of experimental folk versions of their own songs hints at it. 5/5
The Antlers – The delicate arty drama of the album (which makes them seem so much like a studio-only band) translates into pure live power on stage, energetic and moving, impeccably delivered, vocals crazily driven like the Xiu Xiu guy, all the slow builds and tragic falsetto break downs. I would have liked them even more if they weren’t so gorgeous and seemingly clear of their hot shit status. 5/5
Woods – Just some normal approachable guys on stage who happened to make one of my favorite albums of last year. They do a Neil Young flavored indie rock with a hippie jam lo fi aesthetic, mic’ing their shit all wrong, hitting cymbals with microphones, and making vocal soundscapes by singing into headphones hooked up to a bed of foot pedals. Lots of noodling, then bursts of compelling songs, then back. 4/5
Tone - Mum meets CocoRosie. Clean idm a la Dntel with pretty, witchy vocals. Need a better stage schtick or presence. 4/5
Sleigh Bells – Gargantuan, evil drum machine beats, slag guitar distortion, two ultra junior hipsters, girl in a white tank top and orange bra on vocals/yelling, aggro dance, more LA than NYC ought to be. Guilty pleasure style. When it’s on, it’s so on, uncompromising, steamy fresh, and new. The off-er stuff is too Beastie Boys metal. 4/5
Standard Fare – Girl led indie pop, spiffy and jangly like the 90’s Go Sailor era only less twee and upbeat, slivers of bouncing back from a bleaker time. Absolutely fun and heartwarming, won over the crowd. Singer is crush-inducing by virtue of being so normal, so casual, so present, not too chipper, lackadaisical voice that reaches into impressive places, wanders, and discovers secrets. One of my favorite new SXSW finds. 5/5
These Are Powers – Noise and hardcore avant techno but crazy danceable and stylish and difficult like if Fanny Pack when to art school. Awesome provocative dancing and ferocious stage presence while wearing an incomprehensible dress. Hip without owning it, giving it away. Body moving. 5/5
Reading Rainbow – Minimal indie fuzz jangle, sort of a garage version of Beat Happening. Sparse and earnest, a little agonized. 4/5
Solid Gold - Husky and cocky dance rock that reminds me a lot of Bryan Adams actually. Mixed with The Killers. Their best stuff was conventional but tight. 3/5
Tanlines - These guys had a Clash / Paul Simon Afro rhythms thing going on which makes them 10x more safe than Professor Murder from whom they inherit, but they won me over anyway - free and bouncy and jubilant. 4/5
Neon Indian - I think their base is 80’s summer synth pop a la Wham but with all these twisted psychadelic sonics and glitch. Lots of swirling sounds and plodding synth under dreamy vocals. A hint of Black Kids on stage; they definitely work hard for their buzz status. 4/5
Everything Everything – Interesting, unpredictable rock that too often broke down into hard rock with a radio-ready vibe. 3/5
The Drums – A charged and uptempo Echo & The Bunnymen, or a post-Smiths effort picking up where my beloved Voxtrot left off. Which is weird because the album is so light and surfy, but they belt it out with enormous caliber superstar swagger that ruined the songs I already knew and created pure gold out of the ones I didn’t. Superlative songwriting, well conceived and new, but using only standard instrumentation. 5/5
Lovvers - Chipper pop punk. Cute dudes from some place with accents. The garage band you'd most want to play at your house party. 4/5
???? - Isn't that the chick from Michaku & The Shapes? Only older now? Or is this a Raincoats side project? Minimal drums, weird time signatures, guitar, some analog synth bass, light female French vocals, shifting artpop. Well crafted. Pleasant and upbeat and weird. French lady in a scarf against the chilly Saturday in the Ms. Bea’s lot, her drummer dude. I went for Toro Y Moi and was confused for days. Anyone know who this band was?????? 5/5
Dan Black - Charming danceable rock and synth pop. A more rock version of FischerSpooner? Maybe gay? Definitely British. As unabashedly cheesy as Milli Vanilli but not quite The Darkness. 4/5
The Hood Internet - Girl Talk used to be awesome. Now Hood Internet is. Best guilty pleasure dance party since I lived in LA. 5/5
Katie Stelmanis – Very Kate Bush but with more beats and a full band line up and so so good, not utterly unlike The Knife. Belts out vocals with courage, music with a strong heartbeat, moving songs. Totally impressed. 5/5
Fergus & Geronimo – They were younger than I thought, which made it worse. I imagined them as two crusty old rockers from Denton with world-weary insights into the difficult life of romance. Instead they were four hyper whipper snappers who played their fare loud and fast instead of subtle and magical. I almost left at first because I thought it was the wrong band. 3/5
Casiokids – A combination of DFA Records and Erland Oye, a bunch of Scandanavian dudes with a rock line up and extra keyboards playing homegrown dancey stuff, almost techno sometimes. Smooth and danceable. The evil guy from No Country For Old Men is in this band. 4/5
Surfer Blood – They were younger than I thought, which made it better. I imagined them as muscley blond surfer type early 30’s dudes who liked Weezer too much, and something about the singer being in reality a nasal, cheruby normal kid with a voice as powerful as a canon adjusted the entire band for me from okay to important, like it was way less fake, more relatable, and now the album is on heavy rotation. The music is pleasant and gratifying, with simple declamatory vocals that evoke a 70’s vibe. Songs tight like they are etched in concrete, casually confident and precise live performance. 5/5
Dam Funk – He’s like a modern electro Prince. Afro, keytar, the whole thing. I've already heard Prince though. He's even still alive. 3/5
Black Angels – I always want to scoff at this retro psychedelic band, some swirl of Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, and The Doors, cut with angry LSD. But even without getting stoned, oh so reluctantly, every time, I have to admit this band is incredibly impressive. That one time in the cold desert night outside LA was especially good, and it’s a fine show to wrap up SXSW too, all spitty echoed vocals and thumping drums and a heroin injection of rock n’ roll. 4/5
Just The Hits (Randy’s Top 20 Songs from SXSW 2010)
SXSW Radio 2010 (82 Songs from SXSW 2010)
It was a super solid SXSW. As the internet moves us all closer to the source, the emphasis is on seeing the bands you’ve been listening to last year rather than brand new discoveries. Nothing legendary happened, other than maybe seeing The XX in the smallest venue they’ll ever play again, but there were also almost no duds – tons of great music and live performances.
Highlights:
Bear In Heaven
The Wooden Birds
Explode Into Colors
Surfer Blood
The Drums
WhoMadeWho
Katie Stelmanis
Standard Fare
These Are Powers
The Antlers
The XX
Not only are there free days shows and night shows all week, now SXSW also starts on Sunday. WTF.
Octopus Project – I think they’ve been my first show for four out of the past five SXSWs. They rock. 4/5
Man or Astroman? – This intense surf band came back from the dead to play their first show in 13 years, and I was impressed with how current their music sounded and how driven their stage performance was, even without using their famous gauss machine much. 4/5
INTERLUDE: I hadn’t heard much about chillwave (aside: genre substratification = barf) before SXSW, but Washed Out and Small Black seem to be high profile members, as is Memory Tapes who I didn’t see but learned after that it’s formed from remnants of one of my favorite bands of the past couple years: Hail Social. Anyway, get hip with the lingo, don’t call it “electro pop” or some dumb shit like I do below.
Washed Out – is one member of Small Black and apparently everyone who likes electro pop likes both. He used that sample loop pedal thing on his vocals to craft layers of crooning, sober vocals over his punchy Treasure Fingers style electro-disco. Very danceable, but somehow kind of plain. 3/5
Small Black - Dudes doing smooth dance music live with real instruments. A bit more hip than urgent, like many of the bands seemingly striving to be the next MGMT. 3/5
Bear In Heaven – The plodding synths are prominent in the recordings, but live the powerful vocals in the vein of Air Supply / Yes / Rush, the slices of crunchy guitar, and the acoustic drums composed like drum machine beats elevate the deadpan songs with a command and currency that’s unique and less obvious than sexy bands like The XX. It’s a creepy and beautiful 70’s revivalism from a band that’s fabulously hideous. 5/5
Blair – 90’s girl alt rock. Heartstring plucking pop. Competent but predictable. 3/5
Here We Go Magic – Layers of repeating simple rock instrumentation, structurally surreal like the Talking Heads. One of those new non-genre-except-maybe-rock bands. 4/5
Blessure Grave – A capable goth version of Blur, walls of Joy Division guitar slag. Crunchy like Interpol, doom voice. Songwriting all bundled up and screwed in. They looked nervous up there in their Hot Topic threads, though. 4/5
Hudson Mohawke – Impossibly loud electronic musician who picks up where Prefuse 73 left off, but way more broken. Absolute disregard for the subtle distinction between a delicate idm piece and a frenetic banger, never drops a steady rhythm but gets fists pumping regardless. We can peer down his unselfconscious trajectory to where music proceeds to white noise. 4/5
Real Estate - Totally competent indie rock, melancholy like Fleetwood Mac, a little southern swing, jangley and from Jersey. NPR said they were huge last week, but I don’t buy it. 3/5
The Middle East - Australian folk rock with a bottlecap wizard and a dreamysweet Jim James voice. Stompy like a hoedown, delicate like a bird nest. Strong songs with layers of vocal harmony and some moments of Arcade Fire. 5/5
Peter Wolf Crier – Hollow body guitar and drums and two dudes with gym muscles and tattoos and polo shirts. Like the theme song to a nostalgic 80s sit-com. There’s a singer/songwriter vibe, but whereas mostly guys in that genre make music like an easy glide hand job 24/7, these guys seem legitimately willing to stab something. Emotional and elevated and punctuated. 4/5
CHLNGR - I say “chillinger,” but they say “challenger”. A totally unexpected and semi-workable hybrid of styles, or not even styles, I dunno. Lots of dub vibe from complicated echo effects. Two white dudes singing over sexy laid back black people music chopped up and spliced with phat LA electro beats. Saxophone and that weird keyboard you blow into. They aren’t doing anything in particular, but it’s loud and nerdy and intense. 4/5
jj – Turned out to be a chick with huge hair in a shawl sitting in a chair and singing over pre-recorded lush techno stuff, a prolific compilation of the short mix of her songs, a dozen or more. More serene than Tricky. Powerful and easy voice. Songs about drugs. Very estrogen-y. 3/5 for performance, but the music is a 4.
Pattern Is Movement – Both the operatic singing and the look of the musicians brought to mind that creepy Teddy Bears’ Picnic shit, also the vague suspicion that the band is trying to drive you crazy. They did some blue-eyed soul R&B covers with their characteristic constant insane drumming which was pretty amazing, and I wish they’d make that band next. 4/5
Slaraffenland – A Danish band of cool dudes with interesting rhythms and seafaring chants. A saxophone. Really fresh without being gimmicky, not unlike WhoMadeWho’s earlier rock songs. 4/5
Standard Fare – Girl led indie pop, spiffy and jangly like the 90’s Go Sailor era only less twee and upbeat, slivers of bouncing back from a bleaker time. Absolutely fun and heartwarming, won over the crowd. Singer is crush-inducing by virtue of being so normal, so casual, so present, not too chipper, lackadaisical voice that reaches into impressive places, wanders, and discovers secrets. One of my favorite new SXSW finds. 5/5
Solid Gold - Husky and cocky dance rock that reminds me a lot of Bryan Adams actually. Mixed with The Killers. Their best stuff was conventional but tight. 3/5
Tanlines - These guys had a Clash / Paul Simon Afro rhythms thing going on which makes them 10x more safe than Professor Murder from whom they inherit, but they won me over anyway - free and bouncy and jubilant. 4/5
Neon Indian - I think their base is 80’s summer synth pop a la Wham but with all these twisted psychadelic sonics and glitch. Lots of swirling sounds and plodding synth under dreamy vocals. A hint of Black Kids on stage; they definitely work hard for their buzz status. 4/5
Everything Everything – Interesting, unpredictable rock that too often broke down into hard rock with a radio-ready vibe. 3/5
Lovvers - Chipper pop punk. Cute dudes from some place with accents. The garage band you'd most want to play at your house party. 4/5
???? - Isn't that the chick from Michaku & The Shapes? Only older now? Or is this a Raincoats side project? Minimal drums, weird time signatures, guitar, some analog synth bass, light female French vocals, shifting artpop. Well crafted. Pleasant and upbeat and weird. French lady in a scarf against the chilly Saturday in the Ms. Bea’s lot, her drummer dude. I went for Toro Y Moi and was confused for days. Anyone know who this band was?????? 5/5
Dan Black - Charming danceable rock and synth pop. A more rock version of FischerSpooner? Maybe gay? Definitely British. As unabashedly cheesy as Milli Vanilli but not quite The Darkness. 4/5
The Hood Internet - Girl Talk used to be awesome. Now Hood Internet is. Best guilty pleasure dance party since I lived in LA. 5/5
Surfer Blood – They were younger than I thought, which made it better. I imagined them as muscley blond surfer type early 30’s dudes who liked Weezer too much, and something about the singer being in reality a nasal, cheruby normal kid with a voice as powerful as a canon adjusted the entire band for me from okay to important, like it was way less fake, more relatable, and now the album is on heavy rotation. The music is pleasant and gratifying, with simple declamatory vocals that evoke a 70’s vibe. Songs tight like they are etched in concrete, casually confident and precise live performance. 5/5
Dam Funk – He’s like a modern electro Prince. Afro, keytar, the whole thing. I've already heard Prince though. He's even still alive. 3/5
Black Angels – I always want to scoff at this retro psychedelic band, some swirl of Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, and The Doors, cut with angry LSD. But even without getting stoned, oh so reluctantly, every time, I have to admit this band is incredibly impressive. That one time in the cold desert night outside LA was especially good, and it’s a fine show to wrap up SXSW too, all spitty echoed vocals and thumping drums and a heroin injection of rock n’ roll. 4/5
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