Courtney Barnett performs in London, December 5, 2014.
Gus Stewart/Redferns/Getty
South By Southwest has three distinct threads, but none are as overwhelming as the Music program: Thousands of performers descend on Austin to play a seemingly unending onslaught of concerts, showcases, and unofficial shows all over the city. It’s a scheduling nightmare that only becomes worse as the week goes on and the perma-hangover settles in. In recent years, NPR music critic Steven Thompson has whittled down the terrifyingly packed event schedule to a thorough but still just-about-manageable 100 acts. But sometimes even taking six hours to listen to it all is just too much. So with that in mind, we pulled together the 10 as-yet-unknown bands and performers playing at SXSW that you’ll want to keep an ear out for—and if you’re in Austin, be sure to seek them out. (A quick note on methodology: all but one artist has not yet been featured as the musical guest on an American late-night television program, and none have released more than two albums on any sort of official record label.)
Courtney Barnett
Recommended If You Like: Angel Olsen, Swearin’
After two buzzed-about EPs, Melbourne singer/songwriter Courtney Barnett releases her debut full-length Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit drops right after SXSW. The title is a telling look at her conversational (and sometimes rambling) lyrical style, which packs dense verses into tight spaces without ever losing their meaningful touch. It’s a loquacious sensibility that pairs well with the crunchy guitar textures and bouncing bass lines she seems to prefer. Though she warns, “Put me on a pedestal, and I’ll only disappoint you,” it’s not hard to imagine her playing to throngs of adoring fans on a mountaintop in a few years.
Speedy Ortiz
Recommended If You Like: Liz Phair, Archers Of Loaf, Pavement
Originally the solo project of former UM-Amherst teacher Sadie Dupuis (she has a master’s degree in poetry), Speedy Ortiz is now a full-time band prepping their second album, Foil Deer, out April 21. Dupuis’ lyrical dexterity has helped the band evolve quickly from exciting trifles like “Taylor Swift” to Foil Deer lead single “Raising The Skate,” a thoroughly confident statement of purpose best illuminated by Dupuis’ comment to FADER: “It’s crazy frustrating seeing women and girls, myself included, put in positions in which they have to shirk credit for their talent or otherwise risk getting dissed as overbearing and bitchy.”
San Fermin
Recommended If You Like: Of Monsters And Men, Andrew Bird, The Decemberists
A collective of performers centered around composer and Yale graduate Ellis Ludwig-Leone, San Fermin was originally the outlet for his more pop-leaning compositions, but it’s since snowballed into a showcase for classically trained musicians who prefer big-name summer music festivals to symphony halls. They’re more baroque than The Decemberists, but more in line with the most orchestral urges of someone like fun.’s Nate Ruess. Expect the anthemic “Jackrabbit,” the title of track off the group’s upcoming second album, to be popping up on movie trailers and commercials everywhere. Or at least it will be if there’s any justice in the world.
Charlie Belle
Recommended If You Like: R.E.M., The Magnetic Fields, spring (the season)
Four years ago, Austin teenage siblings Jendayi and Gyasi Bonds recorded a bedroom cover of The Magnetic Fields’ “Strange Powers” that spread like wildfire across the Internet, and now they’re on the verge of their first EP as Charlie Belle. They shuffled bassists just before SXSW, but show no signs of slowing down—they’re playing Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls Party. Still young but by no means inexperienced, they’re armed with the most infectious kind of power-pop.
Fantastic Negrito
Recommended If You Like: Lead Belly, Skip James
In keeping with delta blues traditions, a lengthy creation myth precedes Oakland’s Fantastic Negrito (real name Xavier Dphrepaulezz): one of 15 children in an orthodox Muslim household; a mid-’90s Interscope deal as Xavier; a near-fatal car crash that left him in a coma; a creative rebirth under the moniker Fantastic Negrito. He recently won the NPR Tiny Desk Contest, beating out over 7,000 other entries—and his impassioned vocal performance shows exactly why he’s got a real chance at breaking through this time around.
Kate Tempest
Recommended If You Like: Mos Def, Carol Ann Duffy, Samuel Becket
It’s not all that rare to see musicians branch out into other disciplines like fashion or acting—but it’s unique for one to start garnering wide acclaim in multiple artistic arenas. Kate Tempest is that rarity, a wordsmith capable of bending language to her will on the page, on record, and on a theater stage. She won the 2013 Ted Hughes Prize for Innovation in Poetry—for Brand New Ancients, which she also performed onstage in London and New York— and was nominated for the 2014 Mercury Prize for Everybody Down, an album wherein each track corresponds to a chapter in her novel The Bricks That Built The Houses. Every slam poet and rapper dreams of finding the kind of emotional and sociopolitical artistic groove Kate Tempest has tapped into, and it shows no signs of slowing down.
Field Mouse
Recommended If You Like: The Breeders, Sonic Youth
Rachel Browne and Andrew Futral met at SUNY Purchase back in 2010, and their musical collaboration led to Field Mouse, whose debut Hold Still Life came out last summer on Topshelf Records. They write loud, dense, dreamy songs, with Browne’s vocals occasionally swimming above the mix. It’s the closest anyone will ever get to sounding like Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and Kim Deal of The Breeders teamed up to make a racket (and not the lullaby-esque Washing Machine standout “Little Trouble Girl”).
Fatherson
Recommended If You Like: Frightened Rabbit, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Idlewild, music that is good
With a defiant debut album title like I Am An Island, Glasgow-based trio Fatherson could come off like they’re trying to shut everyone else out. But instead, they’re following in the footsteps of other Scottish rock crossovers with heavy sounds but inviting hooks—aided by singer Ross Leighton’s ability to soar over a busy chorus.
Vérité
Recommended If You Like: Ellie Goulding, Lorde, Lana Del Rey
Every year a few female vocalists with impressive range pair up with prodigiously gifted electronic producers to ignite new pop sensations. Vérité will be one of those for 2015. Vocalist Kelsey Byrne grew up around music—her father is a rock musician, and she once played in an all-girl punk group—but she never once met producer Elliot Jacobsen (who plays drums for Ingrid Michaelson) during the two years they worked on her Echo EP . The result is every bit as enticing and club-dominating as The Love Club, the EP that first introduced Lorde to the world.
Strawberry Runners
Recommended If You Like: Hello Saferide, Mega Gem,
Though the band has existed in some capacity for two years, it only solidified a permanent lineup in the past six months. Vocalist and guitarist Emi Knight attended Goddard College in Vermont with guitarist David Runge, plays in Mega Gem with drummer Tomas Campos, and met bassist Eli Saragoussi in the band’s home base of Denver. The band only has 13 ramshackle songs scattered across a handful of EPs, but the version of “Hatcher Creek” included in NPR’s Austin 100 is a great leap forward, and shows why the band has been the go-to opener for anyone on the indie rock circuit swinging through the Mile High City. It’s laidback and spacey, but catchy enough to command attention.
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