SXSW Unveils First Round of 2009 Acts

The 2009 South by Southwest festival is looming on the horizon, as always, in mid-March. The largest congregation of music-biz glad-handers, exuberant bloggers, and frustrated bands in the world, SXSW will take over Austin from March 18-22, with whole downtown streets shut down for the sole purposes of rock and/or roll.

The festival recently unveiled a 'partial list' of bands due to be performing. This first round is, we should caution, just the very tip of the iceberg, with hundreds upon hundreds more to come to the party between now and then. But, from the initial unveiling, a roughly-sketched-together list of picks thus far would be:

• Akron/Family (pictured): Recent signees to Dead Oceans, Akron/Family forge a forested, freaked-out take on folk-rock, mixing wholesome four-part harmonies and experimental free-jazz excursions with equal aplomb. Currently finishing up their first LP for DO, A/F always bring the hippy-ish business live.
• Buraka Som Sistema: Hailing from rough-and-tumble Amadora, on Lisbon's outskirts, these Portuguese party-starters draw heavily from kuduro, an Angolan dance movement that splintered off of techno. BSS have, notably, collaborated with MIA, and their debut album, Black Diamond is a critique of Angola's foreign trade in oil and diamonds, and the war and suffering it invites.
• Crystal Stilts: The moodiest, dudiest, most Joy-Divisionish New Yorkers since Interpol, Crystal Stilts play music swimming in muddied, studied echo and delay. Last year, these hipsters uncorked a pretty sweet debut disc, Alight of Night, which lead them to being one of 2008's Breakout Acts.
• Micachu: 21-year-old London oddball Mica Levy has yet to settle into a singular musical identity: making Grime tracks, killer pop-songs for Matthew Herbert's Accidental imprint, and staging avant-gardist performances in which she uses glass bottles, vacuum-cleaners, CD racks, and home-made electronic apparatuses as instruments. It almost goes without saying, then, that her live-shows come with a sense of adventure, bound forever for the unexpected.
• Thee Oh Sees: John Dwyer has been in almost as many identity-shifting garage-rock outfits as Billy Childish, but his latest, Thee Oh Sees, may be his best yet (yes, better than the Coachwhips!). Last year the crew released the kookily-titled The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending the Night in, a set of snappy, ultra-taught rock-songs working with wiry simplicity and pop-like exuberance. And to watch Dwyer on stage is to watch him sweat.

But, whilst that's a good start, stay tuned. I'll have plenty more SXSW highlights and recommendations for you as the conference draws near.