A FLURRY OF SXSW SAMPLERS
The musical segment of SXSW starts next Tuesday 5/11, and for those obsessed individuals—like our man in Austin, Jeff Leven—who are itching to dive headlong into this immersive experience, some preparation is essential; otherwise, you’re likely to get sucked into the vortex of it all until you don’t know Explosions in the Sky from the explosions in your eardrums.
Leven has it down to a science, studying the schedule, applying his knowledge of the assembled talent and working up an exact schedule. You may not want to go that far, and you may not possess that depth of knowledge, but there are some extremely helpful workarounds. And if you’re not making the pilgrimage to Austin but still want to immerse yourself in a sampling of the myriad musical offerings, you can do it vicariously by using the same tools. Or, putting it another way, are you up for scoring 100 free tracks from cutting-edge bands playing at the fest, cherry-picked—sorry, curated—by people with taste?
We’re referring to the mother lode: NPR Music's SXSW "mixtape" The Austin 100, a compilation of what NPR heralds as the festival's best discoveries. For the rest of this month, you can download either the tracks you want or, with one click, grab the whole enchilada, 839 MB of music, and/or stream it as a continuous mix, from Ages and Ages to Yellow Ostrich. Among the buzzing acts you can check out are Angel Olsen, Perfect Pussy, Cloud Nothings, Warpaint, Sleeper Agent, Nothing, Eagulls, Lydia Lovelace, Ha Ha Tonka, Phox and Jagwar Ma. Looking over the list, we’re struck by the heavy complement of female artists and girl-fronted bands. Cool.
If you want the visuals along with the sounds, go to YouTube, where you’ll find SXSW’s official playlist of videos from participating acts, 170 in all, and not a lot of overlap with the NPR mix.
And that’s not all, folks. As Hypebot points out, 8tracks currently features 5 Free SXSW 2014 Playlists, including 50 Artists to Watch at SXSW, while F# offers a do-it-yourself Austin Music 2014 Playlist (via Spotify) that allows you to select from specific genres.
For the record, it took seven minutes to download The Austin 100 via our TWC cable modem. Now, let’s scour what’s in there for keepers…
VMAs BEAMING BACK
TO THE BIG APPLE Getting back to where they once belonged (4/24a)
THE COUNT: ALL THE DESERT'S A STAGE
Jon Wayne is rolling over in his grave. (4/24a)
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THE NEW UMG
Gosh, we hope there are more press releases.
TIKTOK BANNED!
Unless the Senate manages to make this whole thing go away, that is.
THE NEW HUGE COUNTRY ACT
No, not that one.
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PLAYLIST
Now 100% unlicensed!
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A CHORUS OF PRAISE: IVORS 2024 NOMS
