Gold Class and Demi Louise from Melbourne and Methyl Ethel from Perth are the first three Australian acts announced by SXSW to showcase at the 2016 festival.
About the bands:
Gold Class
There are few voices of meaningful dissent left in rock music. Even fewer play with the savagery, subtlety and melody of newcomers Gold Class.
Armed with only a handful of songs, Gold Class quickly drew heads to their live shows when they appeared mid-2014, just a couple of months after getting together. Characterised by attacking rhythms, bristling Aus-garage guitar lines and the deep vibrato of singer Adam Curley, the band were soon mixing art-space and basement gigs with national radio play for their debut seven-inch, ‘Michael’.
Gold Class formed quickly. Guitarist Evan James Purdey recruited fellow creative-writing students Mark Hewitt (drums) and Adam Curley (vocals) to elaborate on guitar ideas he’d recorded to a Dictaphone over the course of a summer. Jon Shub, who worked late-night bar shifts with Purdey and Curley and who builds and fixes guitars out of a workshop in northern Melbourne, made an instrument for himself and joined on bass. The initial philosophy was simple: each member would write his own parts with reverence given to the whole.

“We write everything together in a small room, which is a recipe for tantrums, but we also look out for each other’s interests and we’re pretty dedicated to that way of working,” Curley explains. “The album was intended to be a document of the live set we wrote in a short amount of time, recorded quickly and released soon after.
It’s our opening statement as a band in a way.”
In the autumn of 2015, Gold Class went into Melbourne’s Head Gap Studio for four days with producer Simon Grounds (GOD, Twerps) to record ten songs to tape. The result is the band’s debut album, It’s You, led by first single ‘Life as a Gun’, with its firing lyrical offering, “You can hold your finger on the trigger.”
Elsewhere on the record, political protest meets Australian kosmische; proud perversion rubs against lo-fi jangle, and outsider longings become rallying choruses as Gold Class play out the push-and-pull of their first album’s title.
Demi Louise
Demi Louise is an unsigned Award Winning Singer Songwriter from Melbourne, Australia. She has showcased around the world in 2014/15 including SXSW, CMJ, International Folk Alliance, MUCON, Zandari Festa, Liverpool Sound City, Dublin YouBloom, Australian Music Week and Canadian Music Week.
Her song ‘Rivers Run to Red’ has been covered by The Voice Winner in Germany and her debut single Ruins reached No 7 in the ITunes Singer Songwriter Charts. Demi has a 60,000+ ever growing social media fanbase and has attracted the attention of several labels around the globe as well as receiving great reviews of her live performances.
Methyl Ethel
Methyl Ethel is the uninhibited alt-pop project from Perth musician Jake Webb. The band started in 2013, as an outlet for the reverb soaked home recordings Webb was working on whilst developing his ambient and textural guitar playing in a variety of local outfits. Methyl Ethel has since blossomed into one of the most critically revered and publicly embraced acts coming out of Western Australia in some time.
Built from the ground up in various bedrooms, friends’ studios and quiet caverns over 2013, the exceptional EP diptych Guts and Teeth, which explore themes of anxiety, disillusionment and stasis, were released in quick succession. These intricate tapestries of melody, dripping with lush eccentricity, ascended through the ether and onto the airwaves, with Indie Shuffle, Happy, triple j, FBi Radio, 3RRR and RTRFM amongst others all taking note.
So far, 2015 has seen the band hone their sound, on debut LP Oh Inhuman Spectacle and its accompanying singles Twilight Driving and Rogues (awarded 2015 WAM Pop Song of the Year). Recorded in the same manner as its predecessors, Oh Inhuman Spectacle masterfully blends pop and esotericism to create an undeniable piece of work, which has landed at the top of many mid-year album lists and been championed by supporters new and old.
After a year of relentless touring, sharing stages with the likes of San Cisco, Holy Holy, Sunbeam Sound Machine and Courtney Barnett, Methyl Ethel are now a headliner in their own right. With their hometown album launch hitting capacity in a matter of minutes, and the corresponding tour selling out nation wide, the excitement surrounding the act and their breathtaking live show is palpable. In September off the back of their BIGSOUND showcases in Brisbane the band signed to The Windish Agency (USA, (UK and Europe) and Village Sounds (Australia & NZ) and have received coverage on Beats 1 and NME to name a few.
October will see the band take a break from working on the follow up to Oh Human Spectacle to head stateside for CMJ, followed by slot on the national Laneway Festival
SXSW First 150 acts for 2016
3ballMty (Monterrey MEXICO)
Abjects (London UK-ENGLAND)
The Academic (Mullingar IRELAND)
Barry Adamson (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)
Adée (Kalmar SWEDEN)
Alex G (Philadelphia PA)
Alice on the roof (Brussels BELGIUM)
Aloa Input (Munich GERMANY)
Altimet & the Kawan Band (Kuala Lumpur MALAYSIA)
Anamanaguchi (New York NY)
And The Kids (Northampton MA)
Angelo Moore & The Brand New Step (San Francisco CA)
Astrid S (Berkak NORWAY)
Autobahn (Leeds UK-ENGLAND)
Avec Sans (London UK-ENGLAND)
The Ballroom Thieves (Boston MA)
The Band of Heathens (Austin TX)
Bee’s Knees (Los Angeles CA)
Better Person (Berlin GERMANY)
Beverly (Brooklyn NY)
Big Phony (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)
Bird Dog (Los Angeles CA)
Birdy Nam Nam (Paris FRANCE)
Birthmark (Brooklyn NY)
Black Asteroid (Brooklyn NY)
Bombino (Agadez NIGER)
Boulevards (Raleigh NC)
Brass Bed (Lafayette LA)
Bye Bye Badman (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)
Laura Carbone (Mannheim GERMANY)
Rosie Carney (Donegal IRELAND)
Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes (London UK-ENGLAND)
Cash+David (London UK-ENGLAND)
Caveman (New York NY)
Ceasetone (Reykjavik ICELAND)
Chambao (Málaga SPAIN)
Chirkutt (Dhaka BANGLADESH)
Cirkus Funk (Cali COLOMBIA)
Cóndor Jet (Providencia CHILE)
Consulado Popular (Bogotá COLOMBIA)
The Crookes (Sheffield UK-ENGLAND)
Crystal Castles (Toronto CANADA)
Dash Rip Rock (Slidell LA)
David Wax Museum (Charlottesville VA)
Demob Happy (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)
Élage Diouf (Montréal CANADA)
Dirty Fences (Brooklyn NY)
Dolce (Umeå SWEDEN)
Downtown Boys (Providence RI)
DRELLER (London UK-ENGLAND)
Dubioza Kolektiv (Sarajevo BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA)
Eau Rouge (Stuttgart GERMANY)
Elias (Stockholm SWEDEN)
EMUFUCKA (Tokyo JAPAN)
Expert Alterations (Baltimore MD)
Sarah Farina (Berlin GERMANY)
Lena Fayre (Los Angeles CA)
Fear of Men (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)
Few Bits (Antwerp BELGIUM)
Ian Fisher (Berlin GERMANY)
The Foreign Resort (Copenhagen DENMARK)
Andy Frasco & the U.N. (Los Angeles CA)
A Giant Dog (Austin TX)
Matt Gilmour’s Patient Wolf (Austin TX)
Gold Class (Melbourne AUSTRALIA)
Jon Dee Graham (Austin TX)
William Harries Graham & the Painted Redstarts (Austin TX)
Guerilla Toss (New York NY)
HÆLOS (London UK-ENGLAND)
Haihm (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)
Hanggai (Beijing CHINA)
Har Mar Superstar (Minneapolis MN)
Hinds (Madrid SPAIN)
Howardian (New York NY)
Hyperpotamus (Caranca SPAIN)
Illionaire Records (Dok2 & The Quiett) (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)
Silvana Imam (Stockholm SWEDEN)
Imran Aziz Mian Qawwal (RawalPindi PAKISTAN)
Into It. Over it. (Chicago IL)
Is Tropical (London UK-ENGLAND)
Jahkoy (Toronto CANADA)
Jambinai (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)
Joan Of Arc (Chicago IL)
John GRVY (Madrid SPAIN)
Jointpop (Port of Spain TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO)
Judah & the Lion (Nashville TN)
KAO=S (Tokyo JAPAN)
Marina Kaye (Marseille FRANCE)
Josh Kelley (Park City UT)
The Kickback (Chicago IL)
La Banda Morisca (Jerez de la Frontera SPAIN)
Lazyeyes (Brooklyn NY)
Lois (Madrid SPAIN)
Demi Louise (Boronia AUSTRALIA)
Love X Stereo (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)
Lushes (Brooklyn NY)
LV (London UK-ENGLAND)
Mai Nimani (Hyderabad PAKISTAN)
Mamamoo (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)
MC Lars (Oakland CA)
Methyl Ethel (Perth AUSTRALIA)
Micachu and the Shapes (London UK-ENGLAND)
Mise en Scene (Winnipeg CANADA)
Missi & Mister Baker (Portland OR)
Moving Panoramas (Austin TX)
Mr Muthafuckin eXquire (Far Rockaway NY)
Mumiy Troll (Vladivostok RUSSIA)
The National Parks (Provo UT)
Now, Now (Minneapolis MN)
Oil Boom (Dallas TX)
OKRAA (Bogotá COLOMBIA)
Paul Oscher (Austin TX)
Overload (Lahore PAKISTAN)
Owen (Chicago IL)
The Parrots (Madrid SPAIN)
PHASES (Los Angeles CA)
Platonick Dive (Livorno ITALY)
The Pocket Rockets (Los Angeles CA)
Ron Pope (Nashville TN)
Prince Rama (New York NY)
PUP (Toronto CANADA)
Pure Bathing Culture (Portland OR)
Quebe Sisters (Dallas TX)
Quiet Life (Portland OR)
Reuben and the Dark (Toronto CANADA)
Emitt Rhodes (Hawthorne CA)
RIVRS (London UK-ENGLAND)
Self Defense Family (Los Angeles CA)
Skyline (Austin TX)
Sleepers’ Reign (Herentals BELGIUM)
Son Little (Trenton NJ)
Southern Hospitality (London UK-ENGLAND)
The Spook School (Edinburgh UK-SCOTLAND)
Suboi (Saigon VIETNAM)
Summer Heart (Malmo SWEDEN)
Sunflower Bean (New York NY)
Sur du monde (Rosario ARGENTINA)
Sy Ari Da Kid (Atlanta GA)
Tarmac (Medellin COLOMBIA)
The Nightowls (Austin TX)
Throwing Shade (London UK-ENGLAND)
Vaadat Charigim (Tel Aviv ISRAEL)
Victim Mentality (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)
Victoria+Jean (Brussels BELGIUM)
Waco Brothers (Chicago IL)
Wahid Allan Faqir (Rahim Yar Khan PAKISTAN)
The Wet Secrets (Edmonton CANADA)
Glenn White (New York NY)
Wildhoney (Baltimore MD)
Marlon Williams & The Yarra Benders (Christchurch NEW ZEALAND)
Womps (Glasgow UK-SCOTLAND)
Wordburglar (Toronto CANADA)
XYLØ (Westlake Village CA)
Yarn (New York NY)
Yuck (London UK-ENGLAND)
SXSW is on March 15-20, 2016 in Austin, Texas, USA.
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