Live In Concert From Npr's All Songs Considered

The final night at the South By Southwest music conference offered our team in Austin new favorites, classic performances and a few welcome surprises.

Day three at South by Southwest included death metal, hip-hop from Seattle, a set from the band with the number one song in the country and the emergence of a new All Songs favorite.

On Thursday at SXSW, our intrepid team hosted a day party, caught two performances by Bruce Springsteen and experienced a whole lot of emotion.

Lower Dens' music is about mood more than stage-stalking showmanship: Singer Jana Hunter's icy-cool demeanor sets a hauntingly atmospheric tone that's all about mystery, washes of guitar-saturated noise and the difficult emotions that lie, unexpressed, beneath the surface. Mixing songs from 2010's majestic Twin Hand Movement with material from the hotly anticipated Nootropics, Lower Dens seethed through a gorgeous, brooding set at NPR Music's SXSW day party, held Thursday at The Parish in Austin, Texas recorded on March 15, 2012.

Not many bands can boast two drummers and an uncluttered sound, but Polica made it work at NPR Music's SXSW day party, held Thursday at The Parish in Austin, Texas. At The Parish, the band toned down the heavily manipulated vocals of Channy Leaneagh — on the new Give You the Ghost, her voice slides lithely all over the place — to reveal her as a bold, even ferocious singer in her own right. Hear the band, recorded live from Austin on March 15, 2012.

The first thing that jumps out about rising rapper Sugar Tongue Slim is his playful, funny, generous spirit. Surrounded by a lively and crackling backing band — a laptop, turntables, bass and a full drum kit — STS cut a smiling and conspiratorial figure on stage at NPR Music's SXSW day party, held Thursday at The Parish in Austin, Texas on March 15, 2012. Language Advisory: This is a live concert recording, and may contain language not suitable for all audiences.

Backs to the stage, shirts drenched and spattered with blue paint, La Vida Boheme opened NPR Music's SXSW day party in kinetically jumpy style Thursday. A boundlessly gleeful young band, La Vida Boheme invigorates Latin rock with the grit and viscera of punk and the churning drive of dance music. Hear the band perform live at The Parish during the South by Southwest music festival on March 15, 2012.

Highlights from day one at SXSW included discoveries, old favorites and NPR Music's official showcase at Stubbs, featuring the return of Fiona Apple.

Classically trained and once known as a purveyor of old-time hot jazz, Andrew Bird is now the picture of indie-pop sophistication, known for employing $10 words and the clearest, most identifiable whistle in the business. Naturally, both came into play when Bird took the Stubb's stage as the headliner of NPR Music's SXSW showcase in Austin, Texas on March 14, 2012. 

Led by Brittany Howard, one of the most charismatic up-and-coming singers in the business, the group enjoyed an auspicious breakthrough with a self-titled record last year. But this is a full, tight, ridiculously proficient rock/soul band with remarkable live chemistry and a strong, consistent catalog. A staple of "Bands To Watch" lists far and wide, Alabama Shakes sure didn't shrink under the open Texas skies during NPR Music's SXSW showcase at Stubb's in Austin, Texas. Hear the band perform live in concert, recorded on March 14, 2012.

Few high-profile musicians fit into the SXSW crowd as seamlessly as Dan Deacon, who doesn't exactly cut a lithe, otherworldly, Mick Jagger-esque figure offstage. But everything about his live show is a raving, raging bundle of surprises: Deacon puts on some of the most rivetingly unpredictable, oddly interactive concerts in the business, whether he's teaching the crowd how to move in choreographed unison or issuing a long spoken riff that somehow invokes both Avatar and the mom from the movie Big. Hear Dan Deacon's set, recorded live from Stubbs during SXSW on March 14, 2012. 

At SXSW in 2010, Sharon Van Etten slunk shyly onstage at a church to tentatively sang breathtakingly fragile songs from her breakthrough album, Because I Was in Love. It's almost impossible to comprehend the transformation she's made since, as her wounded acoustic material gives way to "Serpents," the bracing and caustic rocker which closes Van Etten's performance during NPR Music's showcase at Stubb's in Austin, Texas. Without sacrificing the intimacy of a small club Van Etten flexed her songs' newfound muscle without obscuring the beating heart and raw nerves that lie beneath. Hear Sharon Van Etten's set performed live during South By Southwest on March 14, 2012.

All Songs Considered is Austin-bound! On this week's show, host Bob Boilen, producer and co-host Robin Hilton, editor Stephen Thompson and NPR Music critic Ann Powers talk about the bands they're most excited to see this year at South by Southwest. The four-day music festivalkicks off on Wednesday, March 14 in Austin, Texas, and features roughly 2,000 artists, spanning countless genres.On the show:Bad Sports: "Can't Just Be Friends" Lady Leshurr: "Lego" Filastine: "Colony Collapse" Quiet Company: "You, Me and The Bottom" Mr. Gnome: "House of Circles" Teen Daze: "Let's Groove" Bright Moments: "Natives" The City And Horses: "We Will Never Be Discovered" No: "Stay With Me" Sauti Sol: "Soma Kijana" Daughter: "Landfill" Impending Doom: "There Will Be Violence" The Black And White Years: "Up!" Mirel Wagner: "No Death" Deafheaven: "Violet" Trippple Nippple: "LSD" Line Upon Line Percussion: "A Man With A Gun Lives Here" Clyde And Clem's Whiskey Business: "The Ballad of Ed Geen" Young Prism: "Floating In Blue" Sore Lo

Julia Holter's music is hard to pin down. With 'Ekstasis,' she blurs the line between composer and songwriter, between ambient and pop. Hear Holter turn pop music inside-out in her first-ever New York City performance, recorded live from Le Poisson Rouge on Tuesday March 6, 2012.

It got loud when NPR Music live webcast these full concerts from two of the grittiest rock duos of the past decade, The Kills and JEFF The Brotherhood. Each band has an outsize sound, fueled by deafening guitar noise and trashy rhythms, and is known for feverish but playful live performances. JEFF The Brotherhood opened the webcast from Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club, followed by The Kills. Real-life brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall founded the duo JEFF The Brotherhood in Nashville in 2001. Over the course of a half-dozen full-length albums, they've built a reputation on distorted, noisy rock with a wry sense of humor. For the band's Tiny Desk performance at the NPR Music offices, they insisted on removing their shirts for what they called "a sad love song," which was immediately followed by plenty of guitar shredding and messy beats. No promises on whether the duo will shirt-up for Thursday's live webcast.

It got loud when NPR Music live webcast these full concerts from two of the grittiest rock duos of the past decade, The Kills and JEFF The Brotherhood. Each band has an outsize sound, fueled by deafening guitar noise and trashy rhythms, and is known for feverish but playful live performances. JEFF The Brotherhood opened the webcast from Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club, followed by The Kills. Singer-guitarist Alison Mosshart and drummer Jamie Hince formed The Kills in 2001 after bonding over their shared love of blues- and punk-infused garage rock. Their fourth and most recent record, 2011's Blood Pressure — released after Mosshart heightened her profile alongside Jack White in The Dead Weather — is full of sex and swagger, dark guitar riffs and twisted beats. Real-life brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall founded the duo JEFF The Brotherhood in Nashville in 2001. Over the course of a half-dozen full-length albums, they've built a reputation on distorted, noisy rock with a wry sense of humor. For the band's Tiny Desk p

Earth-rattling horns and mesmerizingly oscillating vocals: Boston's Debo Band takes the funky, psychedelic groove of 1960s Ethiopiaand transplants it firmly onto a 21st-century dance floor. With 11 musicians crammed every which way onto the tiniest stage of the night — the sousaphone barely cleared overhead pipes — Debo Band closed globalFEST in serious, sweaty, funky style. For more concerts, visit npr.org/liveconcerts. Set List: "Musicawi Silt" "Yene Neger" "Belomi Benna" "Ney Ney Waleba" "Asha Gedawo" "Lantchi Biye" "Tenesh Kelbe Lay" "Addis Ababa Bete" "Gedawo"

Beirut's latest album, The Rip Tide, was recorded in New York during the winter of 2010 and takes a surprise turn away from the group's early, ?o?ek-influenced sound and toward more mainstream indie rock. But the band hasn't reinvented itself entirely: Anyone drawn to the trumpet and ukulele on Beirut's first album, Gulag Orkestar, will find those familiar sounds on The Rip Tide, but set amidst wurlitzer, pump organ and percussion that can sound almost electronic at times. Beirut showcased this new material in a live concert webcast from Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club. 

Few working composers transcend their compositional means as thoroughly as Tim Hecker. Hecker's sixth and most recent album — titled Ravedeath, 1972 — is an enveloping, almost suffocating exploration of noise music. Hecker buries melodies and rhythms in a deluge of dissonance and sound, obfuscating instrumentation; sifting through the thick, ambient textures of "The Piano Drop" is as gratifying as it is hypnotic. Hear Hecker's textured noise in a full concert, recorded live on October 30, 2011 at Moogfest in Asheville, N.C.

It's obvious on even a cursory listen to Chris Taylor's new project CANT that he's taken advantage of his time off from Grizzly Bear. "Ghost," his first release in this incarnation, came hot off the heels of Grizzly Bear's critically adoredVeckatimest (an album he produced), and it sounded like it. On the recent Dreams Come True, however, the stylistic markers of Grizzly Bear are conspicuously absent. Gone are the tone cluster vocal harmonies and heavily reverbed guitar. The crunchy fuzz bass of "Believe" plays more like a brilliant cover of a lost '80s R&B ballad, while "Answer" is a glitchy Goth new-wave slog and "Be Around" would feel at home under an action-movie montage. They comprise a dazzling alternative universe from an already accomplished artist. Hear CANT in a full concert, recorded live on October 29, 2011 at Moogfest in Asheville, N.C.