JADE JACKSON and AUBRIE SELLERS Two solo Los Angeles-based rock composers decided to write together during the quarantine and emerged as a duo. His video set for SXSW, with a partially masked backing band, was his first public performance. They leaned towards electric rhythms of southern rock, shared modal harmonies and introduced a new waltz about a year without shows: “I want to go back to how it was before we had distance between us,” sang Jackson.
MILLENNIUM PARADE Live Nation Japan sent a concert-scale production to SXSW with the melancholy synth-pop group DAN, the cheerfully arrogant rapper Awich (surrounded by dancers) and the large-scale overhead of Millennium Parade, a great band led by Daiki Tsuneta with two drummers, many computers and keyboards and several leading singers, men and women. He returned to the hectic R&B of Earth, Wind & Fire, added sound weight from the past few days and occasional rap, and surrounded himself with a flurry of videos that transformed him into a future “Blade Runner” / anime scenario. In “2992”, between a blunt bass line and a vibrant orchestral arrangement, Ermhoi sang: “In this life we live in, everyone feels confused” – confused, perhaps, but excited.
HARU NEMURI Japanese composer Haru Nemuri started his set, which looked like a video of a shot, as if it were going to be smooth and transparent. She was alone in a room and was almost whispering in a chorus of female voices, with notes by Björk and Meredith Monk. But when she suddenly opened a door and ran up the stairs to a roof, hard rock guitars and a drum beat exploded, and her voice turned into a scream. Her next song was a shouted rap-rock called “BANG” and, after a breathless speech about wanting her song to “create something precious on this planet”, she was spinning and beating at high speed over a rampant beat and organ chords dense; the song title, and chorus, was “Riot”.
ONIPA Based in Sheffield, England, Onipa was inspired by music from across Africa. Onipa means “human” in Akan, a language from Ghana, and his music has roots in Ghana, Congo, Senegal, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Algeria, along with hints of the African diaspora. The lyrics were in English, while the grooves were mergers that put momentum first.