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Inca Ore / Grouper [Habana Annex; 7:30 p.m.]


Two Portland ladies with a thing for loop pedals and music that flirts with the outer limits, Inca Ore and Grouper split this early Acuarela Records showcase spot with two brief but mesmerizing individual sets. Inca Ore manipulated voice and violin to craft cold, alien lullabies, evoking the most stark and forbidden corners of the night. Grouper, meanwhile, carved a new Mariana Trench with low-end reverberations on her guitar, and then proceeded to drown her mournful songs in it. Neither said much of anything; each did her thing, and that was that. While I'm certainly on board, I couldn't help but think how much more amazing these performances would have sounded at four in the morning. Or, like, on the moon.

Sera Cahoone [Bourbon Rocks; 9 p.m.]


Grand Archives [Bourbon Rocks; 10 p.m.]




Sera Cahoone and Grand Archives share a label-- Sub Pop-- and a lineage, as both descended from quintessential Seattle sadcore act Carissa's Wierd. Cahoone performed first, with a four-piece backing band and a bunch of tunes from Only as the Day Is Long, due out next week. She's got the slowburn country thing down pat, such that it comes as a bit of a surprise to find that Only is only the singer-songwriter's second album. Her songs could stand to be a bit more distinct-- in a blind taste test (hear test?), I'm not sure I could tell a Sera Cahoone song from a Jennifer O'Connor song from a Laura Cantrell song from an Eleni Mandell song-- but at least she's standing on a rock solid foundation.

"This South by Southwest is something else, huh?" offered Grand Archives' Mat Brooke mid-way through his band's post-Cahoone set, and I couldn't quite tell if he was being ironic or was truly awed by the nightly bacchanalia just outside on 6th Street. There's no questioning the earnestness of Grand Archives' songs, however, which sounded pretty fantastic here. With four of these five boys sharing singing (and, apparently, songwriting) duties, there's no room for a detached-looking rhythm section or bored third keyboardist. Everyone here seems invested in Grand Archives, and it's fairly exciting to watch people who seem fairly excited about what they're doing, especially if they're doing it well.

I must admit I was thankful they spared us the overcooked "The Crime Window" and instead capped the set with a "Southern Glass House" rendition bifurcated by a medley of covers-- including the Bee Gees' "I Started a Joke" and Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown"-- on which the harmonizing was nothing less than glorious.

She & Him [The Parish; 12 a.m.]






Certainly one of the fest's hottest tickets, She & Him's Parish appearance commanded a SXSW badge-holder queue that stretched on for a block, one in which I waited for the better part of an hour to gain admittance (sorry, Shout Out Louds, I tried!). Understandable, really: M. Ward, the "Him" half, would be a pretty huge draw by himself, and toss in the novelty of seeing actress Zooey Deschanel in the flesh and just a few feet away [/starstruck] and you've got yourself a capital E Event.

Volume One, She & Him's debut, is an interesting artifact; while only two of the songs are covers, pretty much every track on it sounds like something you'll swear you've heard before. That may be a testament to Deschanel's skill with classicist songwriting, or that may be a testament to one of the chief talents of any actor: imitation. Perhaps both. Either way, those songs still felt eerily familiar when Deschanel and Ward played them at Parish, joined by a three-piece backing band that included Bright Eyes/the Good Life bassist Stefanie Drootin. Zooey mostly sang and tapped tambourine, though she also played a mean Rhodes (as on "Sentimental Heart") and even did the kazoo thing with her mouth on "This Is Not a Test".

Deschanel, as it turns out, is an extremely capable performer, though perhaps not (yet) a comfortable one. I had a difficult time getting an emotional read on her here; she seemed to hover between vague bemusement ("I like those lamps," she remarked at one point, gesturing toward some illuminated spheres in the club) and mild annoyance. (Ward, meanwhile, was strictly wingman, ceding the spotlight the whole while to She.) Until the novelty factor wears off and folks' attentions shift from Deschanel to Deschanel's songs, however, a degree of awkward disconnect will probably remain a given at She & Him live shows. Hopefully this happens sooner rather than later; each live show is, after all, a one-take affair.

Additional Photos:

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead [La Zona Rosa; 4 p.m.]




Pissed Jeans [Bourbon Rocks Patio; 9:30 p.m.]


Destroyer [The Parish; 1 a.m.]