Pitchfork

Cyann & Ben [Day Stage Café; 5:00 p.m.]


Poor Cyann & Ben came all the way from France and only got to play three songs to a seated Day Stage crowd. Wisely they pulled up some chairs as well, lending a campfire homeliness to a couple of Sweet Beliefs' astral slow-burners. It was over all too soon, but pleasant enough while it lasted. (Don't worry, they got to play a showcase show later that night, too.)

The Ettes [Day Stage Café; 5:30 p.m.]


Los Angeles trio the Ettes pound out punchy garage rock, not unlike a lot of their Sympathy for the Record Industry kin. They've got the looks and the spunk, but yet, as with their suffix of a name, there was just something missing from this brief Day Stage set.

Mew [KLRU Studio; 7:00 p.m.]


Seattle's venerable KEXP takes over the gorgeous KLRU studios at the University of Texas for the duration of SXSW, broadcasting short sets from a bunch of festival favorites. This evening's subject was Mew, who dazzled a small gathering with a few tunes from And the Glass Handed Kites and the newly reissued Frengers. If the lighted cityscape backdrop looks familiar, that's probably because you've seen it on "Austin City Limits", also taped here.

Bat for Lashes [Dirty Dog Bar; 8:30 p.m.]


Natasha Khan and her band of gypsy-bandit-princesses mostly played it straight, replicating the sound heard on last fall's excellent Fur & Gold...until Khan got in touch with her inner Tori and unleashed a low-key cover of Bruce Springteen's "I'm on Fire" that would have felt right at home on Strange Little Girls.

Tiny Vipers [Emo's Lounge; 9:30 p.m.]




Slowcore giants Low are often praised for carving monuments out of silence, so it's appropriate that Low's newest Sub Pop labelmates Tiny Vipers erect small shrines from it. Unfortunately, silence was nowhere to be heard among the talkative throngs getting amped for a bill of otherwise upbeat fare like Oxford Collapse. Still, it's refreshing in a way to witness someone look reluctant at a festival that rewards and encourages forced smiles and showiness.

The Postmarks [Blender Bar at the Ritz; 11 p.m.]




Turns out Ophelia didn't drown after all. She just injured her foot, and now she's wearing a cast and fronting Miami's Postmarks. She looks shaken and frail and detached, just as you'd expect from someone who danced on the brink of eternity, yet I detect a secret joy in there, from someone finally realizing what life is worth. Okay, maybe I'm embellishing just a teeny bit.

Experimental Aircraft [Blender Balcony at the Ritz; 12 a.m.]


Austin's own Experimental Aircraft churn out rock solid shoegaze, opting more often for power and momentum à la Swervedriver than reverbed drift. They won't win any defectors over to the shoegaze sound, but they should more than please folks who swear by it.

Blonde Redhead [Emo's Main Room; 12:45 a.m.]




Not sure what David Lynch sees in Au Revoir Simone-- this should be his favorite band. Blonde Redhead debuted a bunch of songs from their new album 23 and tossed in a few old favorites. Kazu Makino brought to mind Björk as she pranced around stage during a new, non-23 jam centering on the line "circle round your tree."

Nellie McKay [Blender Party at Day Building; 2:00 a.m.]


Nellie's considerable talent was wasted at this gathering of cantankerous, drunken insiders, and Nellie knew it. But she tried to have fun with the unfavorable situation nonetheless, hauling a big book of jazz standards and some sheet music onstage and peppering a set of mostly pre-WWII fare and showtunes with a few of her own-- including the twee-as-fuck "Pounce", the closest anything came to a crowd-pleaser. Extra credit to Nellie for veiling a threat aimed at chatties in the back in the same cutesy tone she uses for every other proclamation.