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Prefix At SXSW 2011: Day Two

1:39 p.m. · March 18, 2011 · by Andrew Winistorfer

One of the ironies of setting up this recap the way I have, and venturing to SXSW in general, is that the odds of me seeing something truly awful are very slim. It’s not like I’m going to spend my time at some dive bar on 6^th St. listening to 300 jangly alt-country bands. I’ve pretty much lined up a scenario where I have to hear the bare minimum of shit I don’t enjoy. I spent my day yesterday at Prefix’s day party at ND, and bias aside, it was a lineup that would have had me there anyway (Das Racist, Oh Land, and Baths were all acts on my list to ogle at some point), and then I spent my night at Pitchfork’s official showcase at the First Presbyterian Church. So it wasn’t like I had to sit through, I don’t know, Mac Miller or Salem or something to hear what I wanted to. With that in mind, nothing yesterday was really that awful; think of that section as a “not quite bad, not quite good” for today. I’m probably going to see OMD today, so it’ll probably be back to stuff I hated tomorrow. On we go:

The good: Like my trip to Montreal in November, I did what I could to avoid listening to the bands I didn’t know that were playing our party at ND, in order to have those “moments of discovery” that events like SXSW are built on. That served me well throughout the day, particularly with Bass Drum of Death, the raucous, stone cold mothers from Mississippi who blend rhythm & blooze with Black Lips-esque garage rock. They have a debut album, GB City, out on April 12, which you can expect to blow up in mags like Vice.

Not knowing anything about Gobble Gobble was a blessing too: I had no idea to expect the mixture of Blue Man Group, electro-pop, and a generally bonkers stage show that involved heavy use of stilts. Gobble Gobble is mostly the work of one beatmaker and singer, and he brings along his enthusiastic friend to play shit on shovels, bass drum heads, and hockey helmets. It was a Technicolor dance party inside of a building demolition. I’m not sure I’d recommend them musically, but as a stage show, it was like the Flaming Lips in miniature.

Same goes for Austra, the six-piece synth band that is an easy mid-point between School of Seven Bells (thanks to the probable twins who sing back up) and Twin Sister (both bands make airy, breakable pop). Their stage show is a mixture of synchronized dance, monolithic beats, and awkward staring. Look for the group’s debut LP on Domino this May.   

After a lengthy delay due to the members being separated in SXSW’s throngs, Das Racist played Prefix’s party, launching into numbers like “You Oughta Know,” “Rainbow in the Dark,” and “Amazing” with help from a guesting Lakutis. “We brought along a white rapper to calm all you white people out here,” Kool A.D. said at one point. As is the case with Das Racist, you’re not sure how much of this is performance art, as they deliver a shouty and sloppy set that could be interpreted as a comment on modern hip-hop stagecraft. Heems demolished one of his verses by rapping in a high voice, while Dap did a bunch of dancing and more rapping than you’d assume he could. I’m not sure whether it was great, or if it was a mess. Either way, I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Oh Land played too, but I already said what I think about her. She was great, again.

Aside from the first two acts, the Pitchfork Showcase at the church was wired to be a crowd pleaser. After the crowd was packed into pews, we were treated to monster set after monster set, from Glasser’s ridiculously loud art-pop, which sounds like music for the end of the world when it’s being blown at you in a church, to the second triumphant set I’ve seen of Twin Shadow (George Lewis was on special fire, recalling times spent in a Presbyterian church as a boy, asking the crowd to “don’t be so polite,” and bringing out his producer, Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor).  I also admit to not really listening to Tune-Yards that much until I saw her last night, but she was probably the crowd favorite, as she got them to stand up at one point, enchanting with her prodigious looping, relentless grinning and nervous banter about being under pressure for playing Pitchfork’s party.

The not: So, like I said, none of the bands in this category were especially bad, just that they shined less bright than the long roll of bands I listed above. Asobi Seksu and Baths both played Prefix’s party, and both were pretty okay. Asobi’s shoegaze haze wears on me fast, but they were the loudest band I’ve seen so far at a festival pretty light on loud, face-crushing bands. Baths is more notable for the fact that Prefix is just one of 18(!) gigs dude has planned this week, and the fact that he was able to turn the head-trip music of Cerulean into dancy party-starters. You’d never expect songs that sound like the inside of a placenta on record to get people dancing like they did at ND.

The two opening bands at Pitchfork’s showcase were a wash too. Julianna Barwick was first, and while her epically slow vocal monuments might be perfect for a church setting, they just made me mad sleepy (and reminded me of the soundtrack to Gladiator, for some reason).

The biggest question re: Cults was whether or not the band actually have any songs apart from “Go Outside.” They do, apparently: About seven. Obviously none was as good as “Go Outside,” but the real problem was that this is a young band still figuring out their stage show. They were, by far, the worst sounding band at Pitchfork, a problem that seemed to be the venue’s at first—this is, after all, a church without a massive P.A.—but was only the Cults’, as the rest of the lineup had no problem at all. We’ll see how these five dudes and one chick do when their album comes out—on Columbia!—in May.  

The best: There was a lot riding on James Blake’s headlining set at Pitchfork, being that it served as the final jewel in his crown as current indie buzz king. Blake seemed to know it too: Performing in a hooded sweatshirt, he sighed exasperatedly into the mic when he got onstage, and said very little beyond “thank you.” He also put all his buzz chips into just a few performances at SXSW—a total of no more than three, by my count. So Blake was under some serious pressure: Blow the performance, and you can become the next Salem (a buzz band no one seems to actually like).

Which is why it was so triumphant when Blake delivered one of the most riveting performances I’ve ever seen. Instead of busying up his productions for the festival crowd, he kept every long pause, empty space, and vocal idiosyncrasy. Blake debut a live band set up here at SXSW—he performed with a sampler and guitar player and a drummer—but he was the indubitable star, working his vocal modulator and looping machine like a wizard. Songs like “Limit to Your Love” were austerely perfect in person, and he whipped up bowel disgorging bass at moments too. He got a standing ovation at the end, which was pretty much the only way to respond to his set. Setting a performance in a church didn’t make much sense for the likes of Glasser, Tune-Yards or Twin Shadow, but for Blake, it was perfect.