A good month has passed since the magical madness of South By Southwest swept through Austin and I’ve been reflecting on the new sounds the beer-soaked, sun-drenched tidal wave has left me with. These three bands I had heard bits and pieces of, even whole albums, before SXSW, but was bought hook, line and sinker when I saw them live.
Tune-Yards (often spelled with some weird capitalization I’m not even going to try to replicate) is an Oakland duo that sounds like an army ten times their size. Merrill Garbus’s powerhouse of a voice belts out tunes that are reminiscent of everything from pop ballads to African singing. They are odd, and fun, and dancy, and just absolutely bowl-you-over-amazing.
James Blake
James Blake’s album has been in regular rotation at my house for a few months now, but I had my suspicions that he may be an artist whose voice might get lost in a larger venue. His album, The Wilhelm Screm, is full of quiet sexy, slow-fi electronic songs. Boy was I wrong. I saw him perform in large venues twice and he had the crowd spell bound.
Tyler the Creator from Odd Future
Odd Future are undoubtedly one of the breakout acts of SXSW 2011. They’d made the blog rounds and had a couple tv spots, but as the SXSW week progressed they were getting more and more buzz, and for good reason: they’re group of rowdy, smart-assed, teenage hooligans with good rhymes. At the show I caught, Tyler the Creator took stage diving to staggering heights, apparently breaking the nose of an unlucky audience member. But hey, the price you pay to catch a rising star.