Noah Kahan, This Is Lorelei, Angela Autumn, and More Reviews From Monday at SXSW

No Midday Slowdown at the Marshall Day Party

Across two stages, the Marshall day party at Mohawk kept the afternoon in constant motion, cycling through indie rock, shoegaze, and alt-pop from a tightly packed bill. The outdoor stage got underway with Gran Moreno, whose groove-heavy psychedelic rock and towering guitar riffs gradually gathered a crowd of early arrivals. Inside, Bloodsports and Ashaine White handled the room’s sets, with the former leaning into wiry noise rock and the latter delivering a more stripped, pop-bending approach. Outside, Rocket ripped through distortion-drenched indie rock built on reverb-laced guitar licks and fuzzy shoegaze haze. This Is Lorelei, the solo project of Water From Your Eyes guitarist Nate Amos, followed with warped indie pop, twisting bright melodies into delightfully off-kilter hooks shaped by a distinctly Nineties-leaning sensibility. He played with touring bandmates Al Nardo and Bailey Wollowitz before vocalist Rachel Brown joined them to perform as Water From Your Eyes proper. Together, the quartet brought the showcase to a close with a frenetic, shape-shifting performance that blurred experimental pop, post-punk urgency, and glitchy electronic textures into a cohesive rush of angular rhythms and jagged hooks. Between songs, Brown fired off the remark, “Fuck the CIA and whoever else they’ve got on the fucking panels,” a line that underscored the night’s charged, no-holds-barred energy. The day’s programming revealed a throughline of expansive, uncompromising performances that reflected a lively range of soundscapes.  – Miranda Garza

Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien Emerges from the Background With New Short Film

Small crystals lined the red cushions on the pews of Austin’s Central Presbyterian Church. “Don’t tell me Ed’s going New Age on us,” the woman sitting beside me remarked in a deep Southern accent. She most likely left disappointed, because O’Brien did indeed let his New Age flag fly, but luckily for us, in a way that felt both authentic and well-intentioned. The night started with a screening of “Blue Morpho: The Three Act Play,” a slightly pretentious but beautifully shot film scored by and starring O’Brien as himself. The 10-minute short features narration from O’Brien detailing how he found therapy in the sonic landscape of nature as he walks a trail near his home in Wales. “Blue Morpho” is expressionistically scored, heavily influenced by natural sound. 

Rich Roll, popular wellness podcaster, led a post-screening conversation with the musician – not about Radiohead, but about how O’Brien healed from the darkest times of his life. O’Brien is no stranger to depression. He fell into a deep episode after the 1997 release of Radiohead’s OK Computer because he realized he could have everything he had ever dreamed of and still not be satisfied. A later experience with a Brazilian healer opened him up to spirituality and mysticism, a taboo in the ultra-intellectual environment of his birthplace of Oxford, he said. Gathering knowledge about the supposed healing powers of certain frequencies, O’Brien began to see the purpose and potential of music in a different light. “As artists, we’re trying to make something as beautiful as nature,” he said. The theme of the night was that “the dark night of the soul” is necessary for evolution, similar to the liquefaction of the caterpillar during its metamorphosis into a Blue Morpho, or Radiohead’s shift to more experimental, electronic sonic textures post-OK Computer. O’Brien encouraged the audience to face their own fears and insecurities. It seems like he has, and he might just be ready for another metamorphosis of his own. “I’m not hiding anymore,” he remarked.  – Joseph Gonzalez

Lucid Express Delivers Cacophonous Beauty

The only way to start a shoegaze show is with a massive tsunami of sound. Lucid Express definitely got the memo, opening with a sweetly melodic wall of distortion and reverb. The Hong Kong quintet could’ve spent the entire showcase in this single groove and made the audience perfectly happy. But drummer Wai kicked up the tempo for song #2, and guitarist Andy, with his pearl snap shirt and Jonny Greenwood hair, tore riffs out of his effects-abused Fender Jaguar like he had rock & roll in his soul. Singer/keyboardist Kim used her talents as texture, floating through the six-string maelstrom and inviting listeners into the band’s sonic world. Bassist Samuel and guitarist Sky held steady, providing the backdrop against which everything else stood. A chiming pop sense manifested in subsequent songs, indicating knowledge of the Eighties British rockers that helped inspire the original wave of dream pop. The group’s 30-odd-minute set wasn’t easy listening – they understood exactly when to insert ear-mangling dissonance, with everything delivered at a fearsome volume. But there’s a warmth to the noise, like a blanket that has some rough spots, but still provides comfort. Lucid Express delivered exactly what we want from this kind of music: cacophonous beauty, soothing and unnerving at the same time.  – Michael Toland

Noah Kahan Makes Long Overdue Festival Debut

After attending the premiere for his new documentary, Out of Body, folk-pop chart-topper Noah Kahan delivered an intimate, 37-minute acoustic set outside at Dirty Sixth locale Venue 6 marked by vulnerability, quick quips, and highlights from his nine-year catalog. The bulk of the eight-song performance drew from his third studio album, 2022’s Stick Season, with songs “Dial Drunk,” “Homesick,” and “Growing Sideways,” alongside new singles “Porch Light” and “The Great Divide” and a few early tracks.  

The 29-year-old singer spoke candidly about the inspiration for his upcoming album, The Great Divide, and shed light on the themes within the new project. “I really felt like I was nothing if I wasn’t making music or if I wasn’t succeeding and I got lost in that feeling for a long time,” he admitted. “This album was me trying to dig out of that.” He added that the record represents a major personal achievement, calling it “the work he’s the most proud of in his life.” Before closing with autumnal breakup anthem “Stick Season,” Kahan reflected on his previous stadium tour and expressed immense gratitude for his fanbase: “Sometimes I see people say Noah Kahan can’t sell out stadiums, and I go ‘I can’t, but you motherfuckers can.”  – Miranda Garza

Deloyd Elze and Angela Autumn Encompass the Digital Twang

The Digital Twang showcase on Monday night felt like summer camp, with the 12 bands hugging and mingling after having overlapped performances the past four days. And the lineup stacked some of the most notable acts of this year’s SXSW, from Cashier’s pop-punk to Shallowater’s droning dirtgaze to Victoryland’s addled indie buzz. But nobody encompassed the digital twang theme more than Deloyd Elze and Angela Autumn, playing back-to-back sets on the paired stages at Seven Grand and Las Perlas. Elze took the Seven Grand stage as a quartet, each member with an acoustic guitar, and with an effects board that provided the backing digital beats and myriad distortions. It’s an unsettling concoction, mostly because Elze’s songwriting proves impressive on tunes like “Queen of Spades,” but as compelling as the production effects could potentially be, they more often came across as deconstructed and disjointed, especially live. When he figures out the right mixture, like he’s shown on new EP Nellene, Elze will have something quite remarkable, though. In the smaller Las Perlas room, Autumn countered with overloaded twang. The Pennsylvania act, set up as threepiece, seemed to suppress an urge to rock out as she delivered the standout wail of “Electric Lizard” and dark tribal pulse of “Heavy Tobacco,” while “Dancer” spun ragged down-home vision. – Doug Freeman

PlantWave Shows Us Even Plants Get Stage Fright

The beauty of SXSW is that there’s a real possibility you might wander into a church and find a man and a plant DJing together. That’s exactly what happened inside Central Presbyterian, as the founder of PlantWave, Joe Patitucci, gave an hourlong performance with a potted specimen. PlantWave, featured at SXSW for the past three years, is a device that translates the “subtle electrical fluctuations” of plants into music through electrode pads attached to their leaves. Joined by Nicole Miglis, who provided flute and vocals, Patitucci stood bathed in light and surrounded by smoke, manning a modular synth. Next to him was a plant – seemingly equipped with its own laptop and synth setup – hooked onto a PlantWave device. Music-corresponding geometric graphics projected onto a screen behind the stage. The sound that followed was an amalgamation of crystal singing bowl tones, deep synths, and sustained, reverberating strings. It was a highly technical sound bath, and even with all the absurdity, it was impossible to ignore the calm that came over my body when I gave myself over to the music. Unfortunately, said music came to a halt just as Patitucci was set to start the final song. Apparently, the plant was failing to produce any sound. “He’s a little shy,” Miglis remarked, trying unsuccessfully to cut through the awkwardness. They decided to just let Miglis present the closer a capella, but she had her own blunder, restarting after beginning in the wrong key. The set was the best and worst of SXSW rolled into one. I’ll be back next year.  – Joseph Gonzalez

Hania Derej Brings Jazz to the Cantina

21-year-old composer/pianist Hania Derej is a rapidly rising star in her home country of Poland, garnering radio play and critical acclaim for writing and playing jazz, classical music, and electronica. For her third and final performance at SXSW 2026, which doubled as her third outside of Europe, Derej sat alone at a grand piano that somehow made it onto the Flamingo Cantina stage for what she described as “a special night.” Opener “Hope” betrayed the influence of Romanticism, and contained enough improvised lyrics and vocals for her to add “singer-songwriter” to her list of accomplishments. The jazzy “Without Words” added a bluesy timbre and spotlighted a remarkable gift for melody. For the rest of the half-hour set, Derej traversed a space where genre matters less than tunes, her fingers rippling across the keyboard without concern for the idiom in which they did it. The Flamingo seemed an unlikely choice of venue for an intimate show like this, with its noisy air conditioning unit shutting on and off at will. But the audience listened eagerly and approved loudly.  – Michael Toland

Buddy Red Conjures Hendrix

Messiah Harris, eldest son of Clifford Harris Jr., bears spotlight charisma and an undeniable resemblance to his father. Disarming smile, lit aura, stepmom Tameka Cottle: The gifts pile high. Now run those names through the music translator: Buddy Red, T.I., and Tiny. What will throw some but thrill still others is the apple’s route here from the tree: Hendrix. Consider this, though: Dad’s Atlanta native bonafides put him alongside Outkast, whose André Benjamin portrayed the Voodoo Chile to critical acclaim in 2012 biopic All Is By My Side. Hot ’Lanta loves Jimi. Looking the part Sunday at Stubb’s better than Benjamin – leather, scarf, boots – Red in no way tried to reinvent the Stratocaster in his hands as did his heart-on-sleeve muse, yet his palpable love for the subject matter won the frigid evening on desolation row. Festivals end Sunday nights, yet SX shouldered on – streets empty but a dwindling amount of warm bodies inside. Outside on the BBQ shack’s empty back 40, Red and his trio riffed Waters and Zeppelin before tumbling through the Stooges’ “No Fun” and cranking Queen B-side “Dragon Attack.” Heartfelt original “When I Dream” began where “Little Wing” ends, and about the time the growing clutch of fan faithfuls wondered if he’d go there, Red ended the 40-minute set with a game “Foxey Lady,” Hendrix in the house and Buddy Red painting it crimson. – Raoul Hernandez