SXSW: Wednesday’s Best

Mohawk really seems to have corned some of the best artists today, with a line up from The Windish Agency, Eat Your Own Ears, Laneway Festival and the Austinist offering up three of the best performances of the day.

Kindness

Having returned from a self-imposed exile with a collection of seriously polished, funky grooves in forthcoming debut album World, You Need A Change of Mind Kindness man Adam Bainbridge used this early show to kind of experiment with the often disjointed, sparse nature of his disco inspired rhythms producing an expensive, less hazy affair.

The dirty grooves of last year’s ‘Cyan’ are underpinned with momentous percussion and vocals that seem to have lost pretty much all trace of reverb, instead two female backing vocalist bring an old soul jazz vibe to the song with sultry harmonies.

With some fancy footwork he dances around stage like the hippest cat you ever did see while the scratchy, lo-fi elements of tracks like ‘Doigsong’ and ‘Swingin Party’ find themselves replaced by simpler, crooning, romantic pop hooks.

Chairlift

Brooklyn synth pop duo Chairlift really turned a corner with their sophomore album Something, switching slightly twee, fay pop hooks for the irresistibly cool grooves of tracks like ‘Sidewalk Safari’, the number the open with today. After working their way through some feedback issues and slightly weak sounding vocals, Caroline Polachek’s voice really picks up and boy can she wail.

Album highlight ‘Met Before’ is as rousing as we could have hoped while ‘Amanaemonesia’ sees her put her choreographic and dancing skills into practice.

Blood Orange

For those of you that don’t know Blood Orange is the latest project of Dev Hynes – yes he of Lightspeed Champion and Test Icicles fame. If you weren’t already convinced by the slick, seductive atmospherics of his recent album Coastal Grooves, today probably would have been the day when you came to your senses.

Stepping onto the well trodden stage at Mohawk he opens proceedings with the tight, stylish beats of ‘Sutphin Boulevard’ only as he wields his guitar like a battle axe they begin to sound more organic and more aggressive. He too is certainly not with a note of aggression, explaining how he gets a lot of shit being a solo artist and one of the things he has to put up with is people setting up behind him, before having a little rant and adding “just wait like 20 minutes man” as presumably some drum tech scampers of stage with his tail between his legs.

Clearly excited to be here he constantly dives into the crowd with his guitar and mic stand in tow, rounding off a perfect 40 minute set in the sunshine with the intricate, dreamy and anthemic sounds of ‘Forget It’.

Keep an eye on Anglophenia, the BBC’s home in America, for a live session with Dev Hynes and a bunch more artists over the coming days.

The Men

Having missed their performance at Consequence of Sound’s day party I was really glad to be able to get into Elysium to check out post punk outfit The Men.

As they set up I notice the stage is refreshingly bare and I hope that means we are in for a pretty raucous performance. With a cinder block holding the bass drum in place they joke that they may have broken the amp already, but fortunately it is just the smoke machine and they launch into, yep, a pretty raucous set.

A mosh pit forms immediately but it is a little bit tamer than I expected, still with ferocious swirling hooks and melodic vocals soaring over blistering guitars and crisp drum snares it is probably the most invigorating performance of the day.

Close But No Cigar

Zola Jesus’ performance was rammed and sounded amazing but we only managed to catch the last two songs.

Disappointment of The Day

Korallreven had some serious sound check issues at Barbarella, which resulted in their show running over an hour late to a crowd that had largely lost their enthusiasm and a sound system that clearly still had some bugs in it. Such a shame.