By afternoon Day 3 at SXSW Sydney the schedule didn’t matter anymore, it was just venue to venue, whoever was playing next, whatever was happening and where is that sound coming from? I spent the whole night running. Chippo basement, then The Commons, back to Lansdowne, Lord Gladstone, up and down stairs and through alleys.
Meow Meow & the Smackouts opened at Lord Gladstone and just went for it. “Can we play now?” before frenzied garage-punk, femme vocal cutting through everything, and kittenish keyboard between these moments of pure noise.
Media Puzzle came right after with synth-punk from Northern Rivers. Shorter, sharper, the kind of set where everything hits fast. Distortion, static, and vocals that just slice through all of it. No filler.
By contrast, Liminal drifted in as ambient shifters, morphing the stage into a dreamscape of tremors and murmurs before unspooling into full psych-rock turbulence. Heavy on the 70s sitar echoes, 80s haze.
I caught Mariae Cassandra at The Commons as she walked on stage with a guitar and that rare combination of teenage audacity and artistic poise.
Paulina from Meanjin/Brisbane was in the Chippo basement by the time I got there and although the room is small and dark, she filled every inch. She used every mic crack, every pause between words, to make the whole thing feel intentional. It was hypnotic, honestly.
I caught e4444e AKA Romy Church at The Barrie unexpectedly and they were my favourite unexpected find of the night. They built these ambient textures that kept shifting, electronic and vulnerable. There was this moment where everything goes quiet, this low hum, and then it hits again. That kind of set.
Ricewine, AKA Talae Rodden, is an Aussie artist whose sound is impossible to pin down but impossible to ignore. He drifts effortlessly between bedroom pop, laid-back hip-hop, and jazzy textures, mixing chill grooves with subtle bursts of energy.
Black Dahlia was masked, surreal, and theatrical. She made weird feel close, like it was something you could touch and it was absolutely a set worth running for.
Geography offered something completely different. Georgia Smith tends these folk songs that somehow hold whole rural cities inside them. Space between every note. Sometimes that’s all you need, just room to breathe.
Sleepazoid showed up and they’re exactly what you want them to be. Grunge, shoegaze, post-punk all tangled together. Their tracks from ‘Running With the Dogs’ felt like actual living things. The band was having a great time too, which matters.
Swapmeet came through on the high stage at The Barrie. Kuarna/Adelaide band, they’ve got indie rock foundations but there’s this punk spirit underneath, sonic experimentation all over it. I’d seen them earlier in the year opening for The Murder Capital and just had to catch them again.
Sir Echo from New York was heavy but not in the way you’d expect. They actually challenged what heavy music could do. Fresh. Ambitious. You felt it.
College of Hip Hop Knowledge, this Austin collective, brought something else entirely. Not just MCs, but DJs, multiple voices, call-and-response, beat transitions. Founded to actually teach the business side of music too. The room carried a huge sense of community and commitment.
Australia’s Body Type hit hard with garage-punk. Sharp chords, no pretense, just the raw nerve of it. The crowd grew around them. It was almost as enjoyable watching the crowd.
Deadshowws closed things out somewhere emotional. Alt-rock, emo currents, songs that turn heartbreak into riffs. In those smaller rooms late at night, sets like that just carve themselves into you.
Finally, Stella Bridie held the Lansdowne in a giant bubble with her delicious indie pop and vocals that felt timeless.
