Frank YangOstensibly, SXSW is a festival meant to expose new music to the world and vice versa, so the fact that I’d spent the past evening and afternoon seeing established artists – I think Springsteen counts as established – rather than seeking out something new wasn’t lost on me. So the festival’s Friday night was devoted wholly to discovery. Onwards!

Los Angeles’ Tashaki Miyaki are working the “mysterious” angle, declining to offer information about their identities – she sings and drums and goes by Lucy, he plays guitar and is called Rocky and at Latitude 30 they were joined by an unnamed bassist/vocalist – and letting the music speak for them. I’d briefed myself with their debut EP on the way down to Austin and was led to expect some lo-fi, fuzzy garage pop but live, they were much cleaner and more precise with the vocals more up front, the harmonies intricate and the guitars reminiscent of Neil Young at his Crazy Horsiest. Their debts to The Velvet Underground are obvious – “If Not For You” is basically “Sweet Jane” – but they spend it in a boutique dealing in ’90s shoegaze. Despite looking, um, great, they weren’t the most charismatic outfit and are operate in a pretty clearly defined niche – it just happens to be my niche.

The longer you go to SXSW, the more venues show up on your no-go list; some rooms are just terrible for seeing a show. Of course, that the rooms seem to change names every year or so makes it difficult to maintain said list – it has happened that I’ve gone to what I thought was a new room and discovered it was an old hated room, Vice/Exodus I’m looking in your direction – but rarer is finding the same name in a different location. So it was that I gave Karma Lounge another shot, seeing as how it was no longer a gross upper level on 8th St but a new (?) street-level bar on 5th. So of course when I got there, everyone was dancing to Ginuwine. Maybe ironically. I don’t know. The point of this story is also unclear to me. But I was there, I was a bit confused and I was waiting for New York’s Fort Lean, whom I’d not heard but had heard good things about. And once they got underway, they were fine but not especially inspiring. The musicianship was impressive and there was clearly lots of ideas and creativity at work, with a base of old school rock’n'roll and jazzy/r&b flourishes to the vocals, but the songs seemed to lack passion. It’s not something that I’d say was specific to Fort Lean but is rather endemic in American indie rock nowadays. Wonder what things are like in, oh, Norway?

Well if Razika, playing the Iron Bear not far from where the original Karma Lounge was, were any indication, ska-pop is much more in vogue in Bergen – at least amongst the early-20′s girl-band set. Okay, probably not a good sample group but still a fun time. They were playing their seventh and final show in three days and despite being justifiably and visibly tired, they mustered up the energy for a strong finish. They played simple, bouncy pop tunes – clean and strummy without a distortion pedal in sight – and though the Norwegian half of their bilingual set was incomprehensible to me, the singalong qualities were pretty clear – you don’t need Google Translate for “whoa whoa whoa”. Basic but plenty likeable, even beyond the foreign novelty factor.

Here’s a thing about SXSW – where else can you see two young Norwegian bands, back to back, in different venues? Besides in Norway, that is. Post-Razika, I hoofed it back to the chaos of 6th St to see Oslo’s Team Me, whose debut To The Treetops! had gotten a worldwide release at the end of February. The musical gang of exuberant youths angle isn’t any new thing – every country seems to have at least a few – but if you were to put Team Me into a Hunger Games/Battle Royale scenario against, say, Los Campesinos!, I would give the edge to the Norwegians and not just because they come from Viking stock. Like their peers, they specialized in amped up twee-pop that made it feel like a drag to be old, but they managed to keep things on the right side of the enthusiastic/annoying line throughout the course of their set. I’d only heard their EP before arriving in Austin so I was pleased to hear by way of the unfamiliar material that they’d already matured in the songwriting department from those tunes. It’s to their credit that the irresistible fun of their performance was able to get me to shelve my, “I’ve seen/heard this before” reservations and just enjoy it.

Minnesota’s Howler came into the festival with a pretty good head of hype behind them – mostly thanks to the enthusiasm of the UK music press – and were perhaps even ready for the backlash stage of the media cycle; I get the sense that some would have been perfectly happy for them to fall flat during SXSW so they could play the “overrated” card. That backlash may yet happen, but it wouldn’t be because of their official showcase back at Latitude 30. They looked a combination of stylishly tousled and lazily disheveled but didn’t come with any sort of pretense – the Strokes comparisons they’re frequently saddled with certainly didn’t extend that far. Instead, they were exactly what they purported to be – five young men with a sharp if occasionally sophomoric sense of humour and a propensity for writing and playing good rock music and having a blast doing it. They blew through their 30-minute set with gusto and no small amount of anarchy – more than you might expect from their debut America Give Up and largely thanks to the axe flailing – meant in the best way – of lead guitarist Ian Nygaard. Despite liking the record, I counted myself somewhat skeptical heading into the show – consider me convinced. Howler play The Drake Underground on April 5.

The venue went from Brit-beloved to Brit-bred for the final act of the night, 2:54. Led by a pair of sisters, the four-piece has been framed as a dreampop/shoegazey kind of band but really, they’re more aggressively seductive than dreamy, with dark, goth-y tones. Lead guitarist Hannah Thurlow might prefer to examine her shoes than put on a show, but guitarist-vocalist Colette Thurlow has no problem making eye contact and holding it, all with a bit of a snarl; certainly more Siouxsie than Slowdive. I could do with a little more melody and less moodiness in their sound, but with the band having just signed with Fat Possum for the North American release of their self-titled debut on May 28, I’ll probably be hearing more of them either way.

See? All new bands on Friday night. Get off my case.

Elsewhere: Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard have reconvened as Dead Can Dance and are targeting a Summer release for a new record. So confident are they that this will be the case, that they’ve booked a North American tour – their first in some seven years – for late Summer that includes an August 23 date at the Sony Centre in Toronto, with tickets at the $49.50, $67.50, and $99.50 price points.

Video: Dead Can Dance – “The Carnival Is Over”

Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine tells NME that there may some sort of collaboration with Dev Hynes of Blood Orange in the works. Blood Orange is opening up some of her dates this Summer, though not August 2 at The Molson Amphitheatre.

eMusic and The AV Club chat with David Gedge of The Wedding Present. They’re at The Horseshoe on Sunday night, March 25.

So those My Bloody Valentine remasters/reissues that have been promised since the band reunited four years ago but have been constantly pushed back? Well DIY reports that they’re finally really truly going to come out on May 7, and in addition to the double-disc sets of Loveless and Isn’t Anything, there’ll be a third release entitled EP’s 1988-1991 which, as the name cryptically implies, collects the EPs and singles of the era as well as some unreleased material. I guess we may as well believe it will happen because it doesn’t really make a difference if we don’t.

Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Soon”

Whilst we’re back in the UK of the ’90s, let’s meet up with PopMatters who’ve a piece on the greatness of Swervedriver and another one that celebrates the 20th anniversaries this month of The Charlatans’ Between 10th and 11th and Ride’s Going Blank Again. Twenty. Yes. Old. You. Me. All.

Taking the noise-pop and eading back to Norway, Drowned In Sound talks to The Megaphonic Thrift, who’ve just released their second self-titled album last week.

Stream: The Megaphonic Thrift – “Raising Flags”
Video: The Megaphonic Thrift – “Moonstruck”

The Village Voice and The New York Daily News profile First Aid Kit, in town at The Great Hall on April 4.

eMusic talks to the founders of the great Swedish label Labrador. Who’d have guessed that a desire to not sign Stars would lead to their “Swedes only!” roster policy!

Neil KrugThe Söderberg sisters of First Aid Kit make no attempt to represent themselves as anything other than what they are – two girls barely on either side of 20 harmonizing on heartfelt songs that conjure the spirit of bygone and world-weary Appalachian folk traditions a world and era away from the from the Stockholm suburbs where they grew up. It’s a contrast and harmony that made their first two releases – 2008′s debut EP Drunken Trees and the 2010 full-length The Big Black & The Blue so interesting; feeling simultaneously young and old, wise yet naive, clearly foreign yet still so authentic.

It’s a tension that’s less pronounced on their second album The Lion’s Roar, but that’s because rather than tip things one way or the other, they’ve managed to not just balance their elements but blend them. Credit must go to veteran producer Mike Mogis, an expert at helping bands bloom creatively while keeping their roots firmly intact – sonically, the album stays close to the sparer arrangements of the debut but when it needs to get big, it does – but you cannot discount the experience the duo have gained in the past couple years on the road; they’ve simply gotten much better, and were pretty good to begin with. The weightiness that’s always existed in their songwriting feels more comfortably borne, and yet Roar also contains some of their most buoyant songs to date – “Emmylou”, a gorgeous paean to two of the great partnerships of country music, is an early frontrunner for one of the songs of the year and “I Found A Way” soars close behind.

I don’t think there was ever a time when First Aid Kit were regarded as any sort of novelty – “oh look, young Swedish girls who think they’re country!” – but if anyone ever took them less seriously for any of that, they’ll be hard-pressed to hold onto those prejudices. The Lion’s Roar is a strong statement and demands to be heard.

MTV UK has an interview with First Aid Kit, who kick off a headlining North American tour at the end of this month and will be at the Great Hall in Toronto on April 4. Tickets for the show are $18 in advance but courtesy of Embrace, I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want a First Aid Kit” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest closes at Midnight, March 31.

Stream: First Aid Kit – “Emmylou”
Stream: First Aid Kit – “The Lion’s Roar”
Video: First Aid Kit – “Emmylou”
Video: First Aid Kit – “The Lion’s Roar”

In talking about another young female Swedish artist worth watching – Amanda Mair – I’ve been saying that her self-titled debut was supposed to come on back on February 15; that it did, but only in Sweden, apparently. about.com has a June 5 North American release date written down and DIY reports that it will be out officially in the UK on June 11. To tide us over, another single is now available to download to go with the previously released video. It’s good.

MP3: Amanda Mair – “Sense”
Video: Amanda Mair – “Sense”

Under The Radar brings word of a collaboration between the wonderful I Break Horses and the I-hadn’t-heard-of-them-before-now Philadelphia-based electronic outfit CSLSX, the first fruits of have both a downloadable and video. I Break Horses are at The Sound Academy on May 5 opening for M83.

MP3: CSLSX & I Break Horses – “Violent Sea”
Video: CSLSX & I Break Horses – “Violent Sea”

DIY chats with Norwegian pop collective Team Me, who are on my to-see list at SXSW next week (NEXT WEEK). If all goes well, you’ll be hearing more about them hereabouts. Their debut To The Treetops is out next week.

MP3: Team Me – “With My Hands Covering Both of My Eyes I Am Too Scared To Have a Look At You Now”

The Line Of Best Fit introduces Kiasmos, the new electronic project from Ólafur Arnalds.

Stream: Kiasmos – “Thrown”

New York Magazine has an in-depth profile piece on Bjork and NYC Taper has posted recordings of another of her NYC residency shows from last week.

DIY and The Sun get to know Dry The River, the next great folk-rock hope out of the UK. Their debut Shallow Bed is out April 17 in North America, and they’re streaming the excerpts of the whole thing with commentary over here. The intrigued can see them March 27 at The Garrison opening for Bowerbirds.

Video: Dry The River – “Chambers & The Valves”

Those scamps in Radiohead have announced another block of North American dates and Toronto is in the mix. They’ll be at Downsview Park on June 16 with Caribou, and I’ll save you from double-checking the calendar – that is indeed the Saturday of NXNE. The festival has managed to hold its own agains interloping major shows in the past, but if it takes a free Iggy & The Stooges show to counter Pavement/Broken Social Scene, they’re gonna need something pretty major to keep the kids in the city this time around. But whatever you end up doing that day, let’s not overlook the fact that this means the Caribou machine is back in action, and that’s good news for everyone. Tickets for Radiohead go on sale at noon on Friday.

MP3: Caribou – “Odessa”
Video: Radiohead – “Lotus Flower”

Daytrotter welcomes The Naked & Famous to their studios for a session. They play The Sound Academy on April 5

Digital Spy and DIY talk to Pip Brown of Ladyhawke, whose second album Anxiety has been pushed back from its March 27 release date all the way to May 25.

FacebookAfter writing up some bands lately whose names have either undersold or misrepresented the music they present, it’s rather refreshing to have an artist whose public identity promises exactly what they have to offer. And that artist is Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny. A grandiose name, to be sure, and one that’s matched by the title of their just-released debut album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose.

There’s no way that labels like those could herald anything less than grandiose ambitions, so the question is really whether the 21-year old Newcastle-Upon-Tyne native who gives the band their name can deliver on them. And the answer is an unequivocal, “yes”. Nature has given Houghton not only a richly smoky voice and operatic range, but a tremendously vivid imagination upon which to draw on for her songwriting. All these gifts are combined to impressive effect on Cellophane Nose, which is by turns whimsical and dramatic, dark and technicolour and enchanting throughout.

Houghton’s roots as a folkish/singer-songwriter are perceptible in the record’s quieter moments, but more often they take a backseat to the ornate, often baroque-ish arrangements that adorn everything. By rights they should be overpowering, even with veteran producer Ben Hillier on hand to keep things on track; a case of too much too soon for an artist let loose in the sonic costume shop filled with horns, strings, choirs and harpsichords. And yet, rather than collapsing under the weight of it all, Cellophane Nose finds Houghton not only standing straight and tall in all her finery, but galloping off towards greater things. Hooves of destiny, indeed.

DIY and The Quietus have interviews with Beth Jeans Houghton.

MP3: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – “Dodecahedron”
Video: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – “Sweet Tooth Bird”
Video: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – “Liliputt”
Video: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – “Dodecahedron”

NPR is streaming the whole of the new Field Music LP Plumb, ahead of its release next week. MusicOhm also has an interview with the David half of the Brewis brothers.

MP3: Field Music – “A New Town”
Stream: Field Music / Plumb

Though The Big Pink’s second album Future This has been out a few weeks now, the band has only now made a track from it available to download. So download it. And read these interviews with Milo Cordell at The Skinny and The Province.

MP3: The Big Pink – “Give It Up”

The video for M.I.A.’s new single surfaced last week, just in time for her appearance at the Super Bowl halftime show this weekend. It’s her video that’s got everyone talking, right? Right?

Video: M.I.A. – “Bad Girls”

The Line Of Best Fit welcomes Lianne La Havas for a video session; her debut album is due out in the Spring, to be preceded by the Forget EP on March 6 in North America.

Video: Lianne La Havas – “Forget”

Daytrotter sessions up with Anna Calvi.

The 405 enlists Summer Camp’s Elizabeth Sankey as an advice columnist.

A Heart Is A Spade and STV have interviews with The Twilight Sad and Le Blogotheque offers up a Take-Away Show with the band. No One Can Ever Know is out today and they’re at Lee’s Palace on February 29.

Band Of Skulls will follow up the release of Sweet Sour next week with a North American tour that hits Lee’s Palace on May 15, and if you can’t wait that long they’re also at The Phoenix on March 30 opening for We Are Augustines. The band takes Gigwise and Spin through the new record track-by-track, with Spin also offering a stream of the whole thing. And over at The Independent, bassist Emma Richardson talks about her painting.

MP3: Band Of Skulls – “Sweet Sour”
MP3: Band Of Skulls – “The Devil Takes Care Of His Own”
Video: Band Of Skulls – “Sweet Sour”
Stream: Band Of Skulls / Sweet Sour

Ca Va Cool caught up with Los Campesinos! on their recent Canadian tour for an interview.

In conversation with The Daily Mail, Noel Gallagher reveals he thought that the Iron Lady was great. No, not the movie.

Liam Gallagher of Beady Eye sounds off to The Daily Mail about fashion, fitness and family.

The Quietus talks to XTC’s Andy Partridge about the making of English Settlement.

Dose gets to know First Aid Kit, in town at The Great Hall on April 4.

The video for the first single from Ladyhawke’s forthcoming Anxiety is now out. The album arrives March 27 in North America.

Video: Ladyhawke – “Black White & Blue”

Nic ShonfeldFrom the outset, The Twilight Sad weren’t shy about proudly pronouncing their influences. The publicity photos for their 2007 debut Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters may as well have featured the band staring intently at their footwear, so obviously indebted were the Glaswegians to the walls of guitar construction techniques laid down by their shoegazing forebears. But what set them apart was the songwriting blueprints they applied those lessons to, choosing to build giant monuments to miserablism from giant slabs of distortion, mortared together by James Graham’s thickly-accented bellow. Where they were coming from was familiar but what they did with it was unexpected, fresh and intense.

Their 2009 follow-up Forget The Night Ahead used the same tools but took their writing in more conventional directions with a greater emphasis on dynamics and feeling more traditionally pop, at least relatively speaking. It represented important artistic growth for a band whom one could have reasonably feared had but one impressive trick in their bag, but wasn’t likely to dramatically broaden their fanbase.

While their third album No One Can Ever Know may likewise not represent a broadening of who The Twilight Sad may appeal to, it’s definitely a wholesale retargeting. Guitars remain in the mix, but rather than the crucial load-bearing roles they’d played in the past, they’re now consigned to decoration and detail. Structural duties are now handled by cold, gleaming synths drawn from the electronic and industrial eras of the late ’70s and ’80s. Whereas their earlier works were studies in emotional catharsis, No One feels rather more sinister in its avoidance of feeling. This isn’t to say that Graham’s vocals are any less expressive, it’s just that the way they’re mated with driving rhythms and icy textures, they feel more like threat than release. It’s an unexpected turn from the Scots, but a rewarding one – and that’s coming from someone who loved their guitar-centric approach.

No One Can Ever Know is out next Tuesday, February 7, and is currently available to stream in whole at , while DIY has a track-by-track annotation of the album by James Graham and The List a short interview. They’re at Lee’s Palace on February 29.

MP3: The Twilight Sad – “Another Bed”
MP3: The Twilight Sad – “Kill It In The Morning”
Video: The Twilight Sad – “Another Bed”
Video: The Twilight Sad – “Sick”
Stream: The Twilight Sad / No One Can Ever Know

Mogwai have been rather snakebit as far as North American touring goes in the past few years, seemingly having to cancel as many shows/legs as they manage to play, but they’re looking to make up for it all with a Summer tour that includes a June 18 date at The Phoenix, tickets $29.50. And if you’re thinking of taking them for granted and catching them the next time around – as I have their last couple visits – note that the press release says, “it will likely be the last extensive touring we do for some time” so sit at home and watch reruns of How I Met Your Mother at your peril.

MP3: Mogwai – “San Pedro”
MP3: Mogwai – “Rano Pano”

Spin reports that Spiritualized’s forthcoming Sweet Heart Sweet Light has been pushed back a couple weeks from its intended March 18 release date. While a new release date hasn’t been confirmed, it’ll almost certainly be before May because that’s when the band begins an enormous North American tour that hits Toronto early on, with a show at The Phoenix on May 5. Tickets for that are $27 in advance.

Video: Spiritualized – “Do It All Over Again”

Spin has a stream of the first taste of the forthcoming Wedding Present album Valentina, due out March 20. They’re at The Horseshoe on March 25.

Stream: The Wedding Present – “You’re Dead”

The Vaccines update NME on their plans for recording album number two.

NPR tried to contain the greatness of Anna Calvi behind a Tiny Desk.

The Stool Pigeon and The Evening Chronicle interview Beth Jeans Houghton, whose debut Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose will be released on February 28.

Oh hey M.I.A. has a new single to stream, a precursor to her fourth album which is targeted for release this Summer. And she’ll be performing at the Super Bowl this weekend with Madonna? Oh, OK.

Stream: M.I.A. – “Bad Girls”

Another week, another episode of Austin City Limits to stream – this one featuring Florence & The Machine and Lykke Li.

Paste chats with the sisters of First Aid Kit, in town at The Great Hall on April 4.

Acid House Kings have opted to give away a track from their 2002 EP Say Yes If You Love Me, just because.

MP3: Acid House Kings – “Save It For The Weekend”

Iceland’s Of Monsters & Men are celebrating the April 3 international release of their debut My Head Is An Animal with a North American tour that includes an April 12 date at The Mod Club, tickets $16 in advance.

MP3: Of Monsters & Men – “Little Talks”

FacebookOn paper, London’s Big Deal doesn’t really bring a lot to the table. Two guitars – one acoustic, one electric – and two voices – one American male, one English female – and that’s about it. There’s not much in the way of virtuosity in the former and neither Kacey Underwood or Alice Costelloe’s vocals would stop anyone in their tracks either alone or in harmony. To hear it described, you’d be forgiven for expecting it to lean towards being rather conventional and/or pedestrian.

And yet their debut album Lights Out carries with it enough ineffable magic to demand you take notice, despite being rather determinedly low key. Some of that could be attributed to the duo’s backstory, assuming you know it (late-twenties Underwood taught the teenage Costelloe to play Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr on guitar and they ended up forming a band) and the questions about whether their relationship is strictly friends and bandmates or something more (a Guardian interview from last Summer rather firmly dismisses that speculation), but even without any of that colouring things, Lights Out is much more than the sum of its parts.

Both singers possess a certain intrinsic yearning and weariness to their voices that’s particularly effective for the lyrics that hint at (or even overtly reference if metaphorically) a bare, emotional intimacy. Combine that with the warm, wooly sonic blanket that’s created by Underwood’s lightly fuzzy electric guitar and Costelloe’s strummed acoustic – capable of switching to delicately interwoven guitar lines or rocking distorted leads for for punctuation – and out of these basic ingredients come a dozen tracks that don’t range too far apart but instead do their work by drawing you right in. Their band name might be a bit tongue-in-cheek but don’t underestimate for a minute how much Big Deal have to offer.

Lights Out is out on Tuesday. The Guardian declared them “New Band Of The Day” a couple of weeks ago.

MP3: Big Deal – “Chair”
Stream: Big Deal – “Homework”
Video: Big Deal – “Distant Neighbourhood”
Video: Big Deal – “Chair”
Video: Big Deal – “Homework”

NPR has a session and interview with Elbow recorded at WFUV, while Noise11 talks to bassist Pete Turner about their anthem for the 2012 London Olympics.

Loud & Quiet acts as an intermediary for Ghostpoet to interview The Big Pink.

Check out a session video by Beth Jeans Houghton, whose Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose comes out February 28.

Video: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny – “Sweet Tooth Bird” (Lightship Session)

The Yorkshire Evening Post and The Courier-Mail talk to Noel Gallagher.

NOW ran an interview with Los Campesinos! ahead of this weekend’s two-night stand at Lee’s Palace.

Music News interviews James Graham of The Twilight Sad. No One Can Ever Know is out February 7 and they’re at Lee’s Palace February 29.

The Alternate Side has posted a video session and interview with Loney Dear.

DIY and NPR mark this week’s release of The Lion’s Roar by running interviews with First Aid Kit. They play The Great Hall on April 4.

Swedish electro-pop outfit Miike Snow have made a May 1 date at The Sound Academy in support of their forthcoming album Happy To You, out March 27. The first single is available to stream over at Spin.

Stream: Miike Snow – “Paddling Out”

Interview gets to know Iceland’s next great pop hope, Of Monsters & Men.

Filter marks their ten-year anniversary by reaching back into their archives for a 2002 vintage interview with Bjork.

And while on the topic of things Icelandic, check out this mini-documentary film on Iceland Airwaves. I actually think I watched a version of this on the plane on the way back from last year’s festival, but they’ve since spliced in footage from 2011. And I may even see myself at 7:00… In any case, watch it and then make plans to go. You know you want to.

Video: Iceland Airwaves – a Rockumentary