TENGGER, Bar Italia, LAIR, and More Reviews From Wednesday of SXSW

TENGGER at Central Presbyterian Church (Photo by John Anderson)

From the peaceful pews of Central Presbyterian to the Eastside’s Revival Coffee to West Campus staple Hole in the Wall, the Chronicle music team covered quite some territory for a midweek rally at South by Southwest.

Find dispatches from both official and unofficial settings below, including some annual fest go-to’s like the Jazz Re:Freshed Outernational and SXSBeaks bonanzas. Stay tuned for our coverage throughout the week. As for planning your own music week, check out the Chronicle’s “30 Breakout Music Acts to See in Austin,” as well as our listing of free and unofficial options.

TENGGER (Photo by John Anderson)

The Blessings of Ambient Family Band TENGGER

It’s not every day that you see a family band, and even rarer to see one this good. TENGGER is composed of Itta (the mother, from Korea), Marqido (father, from Japan), and their 11-year-old son RAAI. Together they make New Age folk compositions with crystalline sonics and a whole lot of heart. Itta explained the lineup in earnest terms: “Suddenly one child came to us, so now we play with him.” In Mongolian, the band’s name means sky. Draped in tan robes, Itta hovered over a harmonium, expanding the instrument’s bellows in slow strokes. Marqido triggered electro-pop arpeggios and played resonant lead lines on a keytar. He was also in full drape wear and wore a gray bucket hat, unironically. RAAI added synth-harp, toy instrument melodies, and shakers that sounded titanic in the honest-to-God cathedral reverb on Central Presbyterian Church. Itta explained that the family was separated during the pandemic, and RAAI wrote a song about missing his father. It sounded like an extended ambient REM cycle – deep tonal movements paired with slow-motion dancing – and the kid looked so natural onstage, like he was born in a sound bath. In the highlight of the set, mother and son walked the pews rattling shakers over the shoulders of each listener, as if this were a mass and percussion was TENGGER's sacrament. It was impossible not to feel blessed. – Dan Gentile

Chelsea Carmichael at the Velveeta Room (Photo by John Anderson)

Richard Spaven to Chelsea Carmichael, Jazz Re:freshed Endures

Since its 2003 inception, London-based Jazz Re:freshed has done more than put on shows and release albums. It’s built a community of musicians, DJs, producers, and passionate fans not just in London, but around the UK, and at SXSW since 2017. This year’s Velveeta Room bash started with pianist Sultan Stevenson, the Londoner and his rhythm section tackling tunes from his album Faithful One with melody-heavy chord structures and fire-breathing solos. Like Stevenson, saxophonist Chelsea Carmichael debuted her first-ever show in the U.S. Her dazzling blend of post-bop, dub, psychedelia, and noise rock bathed the audience in waves of reverb and bolts of distortion. Despite fighting a viral infection on her voice, singer/songwriter Kyra performed her jazzy R&B with the flexibility of Corinne Bailey Rae and the dignity of Lena Horne, the audience in full support as she struggled (and, largely, succeeded) to project. Versatile drummer/producer/Re:freshed veteran Richard Spaven made up a pandemic cancellation with a powerful set pitched somewhere between Madlib and Bill Frisell. Rapper NEONE (pronounced anyone) the Wonderer brought his Midlands-influenced worldview and crack backing outfit to the biggest audience of the night. Brighton quintet Ebi Soda closed with a roof-raising set of jazz fusion informed as much by dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass as psych rock and post-bop. Expanded and happy, the community endured for another year. – Michael Toland

Kyra the Velveeta Room (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Horse Jumper of Love’s Sad Boy Sonics

After five days of breezy, chilly nights, Tuesday’s 82-degree humidity left me sweatily worried about the summer months to come. At Paste magazine’s East Austin Block Party, Boston trio Horse Jumper of Love didn’t get the sunny memo. Outside at the Coral Snake, soft-spoken crooner Dimitri Giannopoulos and company delivered the type of melancholy slowcore that would better befit a winter night – but still made sense following Dallas strummers Teethe. Though their eponymous 2017 debut swayed with bent-note breakouts and swirling distortion, recent releases – which Giannopoulos, bassist John Margaris, and drummer Jamie Doran, alongside additional guitarist Tony Tibbetts, primarily pulled from – have slowed down, favoring wistful introspection. Fingerpicking a folksy guitar line in “Heartbreak Rules,” the bandleader fretted, “A picture of my family tree/ But it don’t look like me.” Later, concise new single “Gates of Heaven” went down easy, save for one equally gloomy line: “The gates of heaven are always closing up on me.” Ending with a gift of levity, the band closed with “Ugly Brunette,” beloved opener to that first LP. With a fail-safe trick from the classic alternative rock playbook, quiet verses built to brief glimmers of electricity, if not quite an explosion. This act prefers subdued expression. – Carys Anderson

NAJ! at Revival Coffee (Photo by Derek Udensi)

NAJ! Rules The Breaks’ Stage, Twice

Confucius Jones and Aaron “Fresh” Knight, co-hosts of the 2024 Austin Music Award-winning radio show The Breaks and bookers of SXSBreaks, rostered an elite team of local all-stars for this year's event at Revival Coffee. One name, however, stood out on the bill’s poster: NAJ! Confucius and Fresh have earmarked the East Austin upstart’s potential as testament to women making noise in Austin hip-hop (lyrically-adept veterans Blakchyl and Cha'keeta B succeeded her with predictably great showings). Decked out in a flashy pink cowgirl outfit, NAJ!’s opening outing was initially reduced to eight minutes due to technical difficulties (headliner Magna Carda also played a slightly delayed set), but Confucius made sure she got her full chance by bringing her back onstage nearly 40 minutes later. The Prairie View A&M graduate punctuated her melodic first stanza with “BLOCKED,” a self-professed “sad girl” R&B tune performed sharply over minimal backtrack. Her second rivaled the Magic City SXSW pop-up’s energy as a backup dancer turned up right in front of the stage for the upbeat, club-tailored 2023 release “POKIN’.” For someone with four songs on Spotify, NAJ!’s onstage assuredness and sonic duality vindicated The Breaks co-hosts’ praise of her. Watch this space. – Derek Udensi

Bubble Tea and Cigarettes at St. David’s Episcopal Church (Photo by John Anderson)

Bubble Tea and Cigarettes’ Existential Lullabies

To fully sink into Bubble Tea and Cigarettes’ soul-stirring time capsules, listen to them in the dark. St. David’s sanctuary became a cavernous night sky for 39 minutes. The dream-pop duo – composed of Andi Wang and “Kat” Zhang – eclipsed rows of prismatic stage lights that revealed only their silhouettes. Magnified by sanctuary acoustics, the Seattle pair’s gauzy harmonies tiptoed through cosmic fretwork and swishing, resonant percussion from a supporting drummer. “It’s kind of incredible that we’re playing in a church. It’s the perfect venue for this type of music,” said Wang, before gesturing to the crowd. “I want to sit there and experience what it’s like.” The festival newcomers, donning elegant all-black ensembles, slurred existential lullabies: “I’m lost in love/ I’ve lost it all/ My story ended here but yours goes on.” Accompanied by soft cymbal crashes, cinematic synthesized strings soared (“Cigarette Butt”), while sobbing guitars lunged toward the exosphere (“Leap”). Like the bubble teas and cigarettes that previously alleviated Zhang’s stress, the band wrung the worries out of the audience’s hearts by the end of eight songs. – Angela Lim

J Noa at the Moody Theater (Photo by David Brendan Hall)

J Noa Upstages the Future of Music

As the first annual Besame Mucho festival proved last month here out at the racetrack, brown colors the future of music, the future of Austin/Texas/USA, and probably the color of our water eventually. An entirely Latino musical card, the single-day event drew 55,000 Hispanic fans according to the Austin Music Commission. Tuesday inside ACL Live at the Moody Theater, Rolling Stone magazine – SXSW’s de facto newsstand periodical given both businesses’ corporate parent, Penske – glimpsed a similar horizon, yet at a smaller scale. The seams showed, if not bulged. Kicking off the five-act, five-hour occupation, which filled the space virtually to the rafters, Puerto Rican pop MC Pink Pablo (Juan Pablo Rivera) sang a little, rapped unintelligibly, and delivered tight, Auto-Tuned choruses. Outside at a fest, beats and bounce carry a stage, but inside, crickets – grillos – between numbers. Dominican Republic machine gun mouth J Noa (Nohelys Jimenez) stole the show like a thoroughbred in a field of ponies. Her supersonic rhymes, take-no-prisoners politics, and light-speed stage banter danced like a hummingbird and stung like an F-16. Public establishment enemy for a new millennium (“Qué Fue?”), she leveled time and space. ACL Fest 2023 curiosity Kevin Kaarl of Chihuahua, Mexico, strummed his trademark monotone set, a sort of Daniel Johnston for the melancholic Latinxes. Also from Puerto Rico, María Victoria Ramírez de Arellano Cardona (Young Miko) swelled the audience most and elicited the best reaction to her downbeat raps, but just like Pink Pablo, a half-hearted stage presence delivered all the entertainment of watching radio. The Guadalajaran headliner Peso Pluma saved the least for last, his raspy bark coming off like Mexican comic Chespirito, while his brass-leaning band careened between traditionalism, hip-hop, and unhinged, a Kid Rock/Johnny Rotten mix for a new majority. – Raoul Hernandez

Bar Italia at Empire Garage (Photo by John Anderson)

Three Takes on Bar Italia’s Anti-Love Songs

Unexpected Phenomenon: Mosh pit at the buzzy, very online indie show.

Theory 1: Bar Italia traveled so far for their one and only SXSW gig that they were forced to leave their usual internet-imposed ironic distance in London. Left with no choice but to earnestly rock the fuck out, the trio took their lo-fi catalog of spindly, cryptic/clinical anti-love songs and gave them the extended-drum-roll, climactic-amp-stand-wailing-guitar-solo treatment. Surprised and slightly confused, everyone moshes.

Theory 2: When Nina Cristante discards her fleece-y ski jacket and goes all Iggy Pop on her tambourine, it’s actually sarcasm. Bar Italia scorn you for spending 15 dollars on a White Claw, which is why nothing was said all night except for Jezmi Tarik Fehmi’s repeated complaints of being electrocuted by his microphone. Everyone moshes, but they’ve missed the point.

Theory 3: Maybe the italics (heh) that surround this hotly vetted band’s music – the goofy misspellings, the Nineties music nerd references, the cheekily diplomatic sexual politics of their alternating boy/girl vocal lines – aren’t tongue-in-cheek posturing, but instead a suggestion that listeners turn away from aesthetics and easily sorted ideology. Maybe Bar Italia writes good tunes and plays them well. Everyone moshes. – Julian Towers

Rapper-Producer Malik Baptiste’s High-Ceiling Sound

With the release of what was arguably Austin hip-hop’s best 2023 project, PEDALS / PETALS (A Mixtape Narrated by Don Cannon), Malik Baptiste announced both his return home and a career restart. Signed to No I.D.’s ARTium Recordings, the Grammy-earning-producer turned rapper-producer sports the clear influence of another dual threat mentored by the iconic Chicagoan: Ye. He maneuvers synths like shutter shades-era Kanye West, and occasionally Auto-Tunes his voice to convey emotion in a Yeezy-perfected manner from 808s & Heartbreak to The Life of Pablo. After last year's SXSBreaks ran well into the night, organizers enforced tight cutoffs for succinct sets on Wednesday evening. Beginning with a one-minute intro conducted live via MPC controller – complete with familiar hunch and head bobbing – Baptiste took just 15 minutes to demonstrate his incredibly high artistic ceiling. The Austin Community College alum played only three tracks, with seven-minute closer “Never Going Home Again/ Why? (Interlude)” packing all the delight of a three-course meal. Heartfelt lyrics revealed his internal conflict about coming back home before the song’s end: “I've been dreading that moment, going back to square one/ Back to servin’ coffee, Malik, what happened? You ain't made it huh?” Unprompted applause rightfully followed during the powerful track’s second part, demonstrating that Malik already owns a sound ready for larger audiences. Let the story continue. – Derek Udensi

LAIR at Hole in the Wall (Photo by Kevin Curtin)

LAIR Mold Sizzling Southeast Asian Psych From Clay

Jatiwangi, Indonesia is the largest producer of clay roofing tiles in all of Southeast Asia. This may seem like an irrelevant city-of-origin fact in regards to the band LAIR, who hail from the West Java locale … until you do a rundown of their gear. Their guitars and basses are fashioned from glazed terracotta, the drum’s made from a large clay pot, and all of them use roofing tiles as percussive instruments at one point or another. The septet traveled 10,000 miles to get here (with baggage handlers breaking one clay drum) and made their debut on American soil with a noon slot at the Chicken Ranch Records day party at Hole in the Wall. A good crowd of internationally curious music heads – some fans of Kikagaku Moyo’s Guruguru Brain label, which is releasing their new LP Ngélar – showed out to hear music that was instantly likable, but unlike anything they’ve ever heard. Tedi Nurmanto’s hammer-on heavy guitar riffs emitted through a 10” horn speaker, providing a squiggly, lo-fi lead to float atop a bouncy, percussive world-psych pulse – which included a tambourine strapped to the foot of stand-up percussionist Kiki Permana. Vocalist Karyssa Matindas was the star: dancing, smiling, singing, and ring-leading their lysergic strain of classical tarling music. – Kevin Curtin