10 Acts to Watch at SXSW 2009

Gang Gang Dance have always been a killer live-band. From their free-noise beginnings to their evolution into futurist dance-party, the genre-destroying Brooklynist hipsters can be counted on to whip whatever audience they're playing to —even if it's naught but music-biz folk— into some kind of ecstatic fervor. Last year, their well-received fifth GGD LP, Saint Dymphna, pushed the band even further into dancefloor-friendly territories, with bustling electro rhythms, wired synth stabs, and Grime MC-ing all on board. Mere months on, Gang Gang Dance are already on the front-foot, promising that a new album, to be recorded at Joshua Tree(!), looms upon the horizon.

• Listen: “Desert Storm”
• Interview: Gang Gang Dance's Josh Diamond

Anticipation's been building for Grizzly Bear's forthcoming third record for the past year, ever since they figured late-night TV appearances were a prime forum for offering exclusive glimpses of will-eventually-be-on-the-album songs. Playing “While You Wait for the Others” and “Two Weeks” on Conan and Letterman, respectively, Grizzly Bear unveiled a pair of priceless pop-songs that seem to suggest their more ramshackle days are long behind them (as does the fact they've been working with Nico Muhly). Though there's been announcement of neither name nor release-date, the new disc's been long earmarked for an April-ish release on Warp. Meaning, Grizzly Bear's SXSW shows will ratchet up the anticipation to fever pitch.

• Listen: “He Hit Me”

If SXSW is renowned as a place where bands break out, Here We Go Magic seem like likely '09 contenders. Their forthcoming self-titled LP —due February 17 on Western Vinyl— is a striking debut, and is already swamped in blog buzz. The work of New Yorker songsmith Luke Temple, Here We Go Magic create complex folksongs in which ever-evolving loops of acoustic/electric/indeterminate instrumentation are set off in pirouetting polyrhythmic patterns. Amidst the bubble and splatter, Temple sings in a high-pitched register recalling Paul Simon at his most hesitant; the stirring whole somehow sounding like the crossbred offspring of Grizzly Bear and Panda Bear. You'll undoubtably be hearing more of Here We Go Magic shortly.

• Listen: “Tunnelvision”

21-year-old London oddball Mica Levy has yet to let Micachu settle into a singular musical identity. Under that handle she has, thus far, made Grime tracks, oddball pop-songs, and staged avant-gardist performances in which she uses glass bottles, vacuum-cleaners, CD racks, and home-made electronic apparatuses as instruments. Levy's whimsical, up-for-whatever liveshows have made fans of famous folk like Björk, Bat for Lashes, and Saul Williams, and her curious, playful, experimental sensibility inevitably lead Levy to the ears and arms of Matthew Herbert. The English don of sampler politics collaborated with Levy on her freshly-minted, debut Micachu album, Jewellery, and then released it on his own esteemed Accidental imprint.

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band rip out nimble-fingered dueling-guitar licks that recall everyone from Thin Lizzy to Television to Dead Oceans label-mates Citay. Frontman Benjamin Verdoes matches his rippin' fretboard work to a hoarse wail of much exuberance, making MSHVB a band bristling with electricity. Verdoes keeps the membership of the quintet close to home: their ranks including his wife, Traci Eggleston, on keyboards, and his 13-year-old brother, Marshall, on drums. MSHVB were born after Benjamin promised his pre-adolescent bro they'd start a band once he got good enough behind the kit. One short year later, this Seattle combo is set to break out: their debut disc due March 10, the week before SXSW begins.

• Listen: “Anchors Dropped”

Though Nite Jewel's not on the official SXSW 'Showcasing Bands' list, she will be in Austin. Given it's not particularly punk to officially apply and pay your mandated entry fee, recent years have found ever-growing ranks of kids gatecrashing the party, playing only at the hundreds upon hundreds of unofficial shows thrown around town. Ramona Gonzalez has been wholly independent thus far, selling the first Nite Jewel CDR, My CD, herself, and releasing her debut album, Good Evening, via the non-profit, Ariel Pink-pimped Human Ear Music imprint. Like Ariel Pink, Gonzalez works in all-analog, making hazy electro-pop on an eight-track cassette recorder; her home-made approximations of new-wave sheen imbued with a particular brand of melancholy.

Last year, Portland's Parenthetical Girls took their perverse orchestral pop to truly grand realms with the almighty Entanglements. Conjuring a sense of melodramatic grandeur and unreserved theatricality, the set matched main-man Zac Pennington's tremorous warbling and narrative-driven lyricism to ridiculous orchestral zip and zing. This contrast between words and music created an unexpected sense of tension that gave the band's third record unexpected intensity. Since, Parenthetical Girls have toured hard through Europe and North America, making them primed for killer shows amidst the music industry's most incestuous event.

• Listen: “A Song for Ellie Greenwich”
• Interview: Parenthetical Girls' Zac Pennington
• Top 20 Albums of 2008

Immaculately-fringed English lass Theoretical Girl —Amy Eleanor Turnnidge from Southend-on-Sea— will be bringing her joyous jangle-pop tunes Stateside for the first time. As Theoretical Girl, Turnnidge has tried on various guises, from electro anthemess to acousticky songwriter. She's finally found her true calling as twee-ish indie-pop sentimentalist; penning an array of sad, sweet, smart, sharply-written pop-songs —“Another Fight,” “The Good You've Done,” “I Should Have Loved You More”— that recall Bobby Wratten at his best. Theoretical Girl comes to SXSW fresh off finishing off her debut album, which shall be released by Memphis Industries (Go! Team, El Perro del Mar, Field Music) sometime in '09, and will surely be wonderful.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums made quite the splash in 2008, delivering their debut disc, Heartcore, and putting in some lengthy touring stints with breakout starlet Lykke Li. These Swedes arrive at SXSW on the back of another run of Lykke Li shows, and with a looming second longplayer, The Snake, primed for an April 13 release on Leaf. The Gothenburg husband/wife duo take reductionism beyond the White Stripes pale, stripping music down to its most essential elements: voice and rhythm. Whilst Andreas Werliin plays all manner of ricocheting percussion, Mariam Wallentin lets loose with a voice robust and pure, soulful yet never hysterical. Witnessing the couple live is like peering into a perfect, self-contained musical world.

• 10 Great 2008 Debuts

Another boy/girl duo are XYX, a Monterrey-based band who're part of an increasing Mexican presence at SXSW (which includes XYX's just-as-noisy pals, Los Llamarada). Though stripped down to a reductionist two-piece —'Señorita Anhelo' on bass/vocals, 'Mou' on drums— XYX sound frighteningly large; using an array of freaky effects in their ferocious, hellacious take on no-fi post-punk skree. Bathing both Anhelo's bass and voice in all manner of distortion and delay, their playfully pummeling racket recalls nasty experimentalists from Throbbing Gristle through to Liars. XYX's debut seven-inch, 2008's Sistema de Terminación Sexual, was an impressive introduction, and the pair will hit Austin whilst in the middle of working on their first album.