SXSW Overflow: Day Six (Goes Cube, The Octagon, East Of The Wall, & More)

Yep, it’s Tuesday, March 16th, another day of the SXSW Overflow Fest up at Super Happy Fun Land, and while I’ve heard varying reports on attendance — one writeup I saw said there weren’t many actual fans there, which is damned depressing, but then apparently WB39 was supposed to be coming up last night to film, so I dunno — the bands slated to play are pretty impressive. Get on out, H-town, and make ’em feel welcome.

Here’re my picks for bands to see this evening, somewhat in order by preference (see the SHFL site for the actual schedule):

GOES CUBE: Brooklyn boys Goes Cube play that kind of heavy rock that’s hard to pigeonhole; there’s a lot of metal going on, sure, but there’re also ridiculously hooky melodies, hardcore screams, breakneck drumming, and sharp-edged, smart lyrics. If anything, they resemble most closely post-hardcore icons (and fellow NY-ers) Quicksand, with a heavy helping of Hüsker Dü thrown in for fun — the pounding desperation of “The Only Daughter” seriously makes my jaw drop. Might have to break down & get this one myself, y’all.

THE OCTAGON: Unassuming, shambolic, mid-fi indie-rock with a heavy resemblance to Sebadoh and Guided By Voices; honestly, these guys sound like a band I’d have freaking adored when I was in college and still learning about music like this. No slight intended, mind you — The Octagon play good, low-key stuff and know when to pull back and cut things short, which is something I dearly wish more bands would learn how to do. Plus, there’s a great guitar sound here, especially on songs like “Suicide Kings”, which also boasts a ridiculously infectious chorus hook. I’ll be wandering around the rest of the day muttering “I play mono” over and over under my breath, I have a feeling.

EAST OF THE WALL: Scrambling, complex, bass-heavy metal with growly (but not too growly, thank God) vocals, jagged, stop-start time signatures, and badass song titles like “Meat Pendulum part ii”. How fucking mëtäl is that, y’all? Seriously, East Of The Wall are a hell of a lot better than I was expecting, and I’m happy to see a real-live metal band playing the Overflow Fest. They straddle the fence between full-on prog-metal (there’re even some Dream Theater-sounding moments in there, not to mention some surprisingly delicate, sweet vocal parts) and Dillinger Escape Plan-esque mathcore, and they do it nicely.

BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY: Gentle and old-timey-sounding, with a varied cast of musical instruments, including clarinet and violin. Not the most energetic stuff I’ve heard lately, I’ll admit, but it’s still pretty neat. Maybe it’s the clarinet, but Busman’s Holiday come off (to me, at least) like some kind of a throwback klezmer-pop band.

RYAT: Intriguing and hypnotic, Ryat is basically the eponymous singer/sampler-ist and live cohort Tim Conley, and the music the pair of ’em make is definitely worth hearing. There’s a lot of similarity to more traditional “mouth music” forms here, and personal fave Imogen Heap seems to be in the mix, as well, but Ryat does a good job of mashing it all together into a strange, soulful, often Björk-ian brand of electro-pop.

BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY: Gentle and old-timey-sounding, with a varied cast of musical instruments, including clarinet and violin. Not the most energetic stuff I’ve heard lately, I’ll admit, but it’s still pretty neat. Maybe it’s the clarinet, but Busman’s Holiday come off (to me, at least) like some kind of a throwback klezmer-pop band.

THE EXTRAORDINAIRES: Oddball two-man folk-pop with a big, crazy grin plastered across its face and a sound that points backwards to the days of saloons and bandstands. These guys really, really ought to be playing with News on the March, folks.

ANAMIEKE QUINN: Phoenixite (Phoenician?) Anamieke Quinn has an impressively strong voice for an indie-folkie, sounding like she’d be at her best standing on a street corner and pounding on a beaten-up guitar, Once-style. She also does some jazzier, more soulful stuff, but while it’s entertaining, it doesn’t do as much for me as the barebones guitar-and-voice stuff.

DA REZAREKT: Weirdly old-school-sounding hip-hop/rock; I swear, this is a serious throwback, so much so that I half expect to see they’ve been around since, say, 1992 or so. Half the Rezarekt tracks I’ve heard so far could’ve fallen off a 24-7 Spyz album.

SHINING PATH: Messy, scraping, sloppy, half-tuned, decidedly lo-fi folk-blues noise from Montgomery, Alabama. Honestly, not really my thing, but hey, I know some people who utterly love the ultra-lo-fi thing, and this definitely qualifies…

SUMMER RECREATION CAMP: Not sure why the name Cristian Subira‘s listed for Barcelona’s Summer Recreation Camp on the SHFL site, really; maybe Subira’s the person behind the washes of sound and ethereal, half-dissolved vocals going on here. Oddly, when I first heard this, music from a different site was playing at the same time, so I stupidly assumed that was SRC. Anyway, my own idiocy aside, these Spanish kids make some interesting ambient, dreampop-ish stuff, very somnolent, although I wish they’d sing less and just let the music itself drift.

More to come, y’all…