A recap of the most exciting, and not so exciting, events of this year’s SXSW including some of their favorite artists and a few that just didn’t cut it.
Music
Contest: FREE Weekend Pass to Heineken TransAtlantic Festival
Taking place from April 17-18 and 24-25 in Miami, Florida, the seventh annual Heineken TransAtlantic Festival features prominent musicians from around the globe, performing worldly sounds like funk Cubano, cumbia glitch, Afrobeat, Mexican jazz, and Malian desert rock.
Big-name scheduled performers include Tinariwen, the Budos Band, Ximena Sarinana, and more.
Weekly Music News Roundup
Over the past week, we caught news of a mini Soundgarden/TAD live jam, a new Kayo Dot album, a new/streaming Trash Talk EP, another Mars Volta album, another Zach Hill project, and a release date for the new Tortoise album. Read about this and more after the jump.
What We’re Seeing This Weekend: Themselves, Wil Blades Organ Trio
After a six-year hiatus, Anticon hip-hop duo Themselves (Doseone and Jel) is back on tour and ready for a new album in August. Ascending jazz organist Wil Blades also hits town, performing with his organ trio and luminous guitarist Jeff Parker of Tortoise.
RTX: JJ Got Live RaTX
Led by vocalist Jennifer Herrema, formerly of noise rockers Royal Trux, RTX‘s JJ Got Live RaTX is a 1980s hair-banging dream, as Herrema shouts and snarls and guitarist Jaimo Welch grinds out smoking mountains of molten crunchy stuff.
Orange Tulip Conspiracy Necessitates Musical Unpredictability
As one of the principal songwriters in Estradasphere, guitarist/composer Jason Schimmel has always loved combining disparate styles in new and jaw-dropping ways. But with Estradasphere on hold and a wealth of solo material, Schimmel now leads Orange Tulip Conspiracy, a similarly constructed but substantially different enterprise.
Commentaries on the Golden Path: Tom Waits
For ALARM columnist Andrew Williams, Tom Waits is an ambassador for a different reality, fighting against against mindless consumption, thoughtless disposal, and homogeny
Oneida: Preteen Weaponry
Oneida‘s Preteen Weaponry is both a stand-alone piece and the beginning of a larger triptych to be known collectively as “Thank Your Parents.”
As a studio document of what Oneida does live, this album shows the band flexing its improvisational space-rock muscles in a controlled setting.
Fischerspooner DJ Set and Environmental Campaign Tonight in Chicago
Tonight, at Chicago’s Debonair Social Club, electronic duo Fischerspooner will provide a DJ set in support of a local environmental cause called “Dude, We Can Fix It.” The goal is to raise funds for Al Gore’s “We Can Solve It” organization, a group whose goal is to wean the US off fossil fuels within 10 years.
Weekly Music News Roundup
Hella returns as a duo; Converge posts a studio preview of a new song; Busdriver, Shining (Norway), Om, Russian Circles and Aphex Twin all have new albums on the way.
31 Knots: Worried Well
So tight that merely listening to it raises shoulders to ears, Portland trio 31 Knots mixes the dissonance of Sonic Youth, the time signatures and stop-start changes of Fugazi, and the deconstructed funk of Talking Heads to create a nervous, hysterical din that reads like Michel Foucault having a nervous breakdown.