The South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW) has announced a third round of showcasing artists invited to perform at the 36th annual event in Austin, Texas. The festival offers the opportunity to connect emerging acts and established artists with entertainment, technology, and media professionals, all sharing in a career- and life-changing experience. The first essential and international music event on the industry’s calendar, the SXSW Music Festival takes place March 14 – 20.
More than 7,000 artists apply to be SXSW Official Showcasing Artists every year. Such showcases are curated by the festival in collaboration with record labels, booking agencies, management and PR firms, export offices, publishers, media outlets, festivals and more. Previous showcase artists have included Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, Kanye West, Phoebe Bridgers, Tinariwen, Big Thief, The Shins, Amy Winehouse, Katy Perry, Janelle Monae, and more.
Four New Orleans-based acts are among the showcasing artists: Blato Zlato, Julie Odell, Sam Doores, and Stone Cold Jzzle.
Blato Zlato bills itself as “a powerhouse Balkan music collective that weaves the magic of traditional Eastern European folk music with contemporary textural majesty. The group captivates listeners with dark and haunting three-part vocal harmonies and thunderous odd-metered rhythms. As a part of the Balkan musical diaspora, Blato Zlato explores the immigrant experience and seeks to build meaningful cultural and musical bridges between continents, with particular focus on Bulgarian folk songs and Bulgarian language-based compositions.”
The group has been featured several times on Bulgarian National Television and Radio and has appeared on Folk Radio UK, NYC Radio Live, and the Village Voice. In 2019, Blato Zlato released their anticipated sophomore album, In The Wake, which charted at no. 33 on the Transglobal World Music Chart’s 2019-2020 Top 100 Albums.
New Orleans singer-songwriter Julie Odell weaves her visions of folk, poetry and colorful melodies into a warm and brilliant tapestry. Odell began writing and performing in 2000 while living in Ruston, Louisiana, where she learned to write music on an old upright piano. She later moved to New Orleans, where she carved out a space for her songwriting and performance within the city’s thriving arts communities and evolved her sound into a dynamic force of nature as a bandleader.
Odell’s songs balance chaotic, stampeding highs with quiet lows, each moment burrowing into uncharted corners of her sonic map. Her anxious bursts reach widescreen climaxes, with lyrics brimming with honesty and imagination, carried by her endlessly versatile and often-haunting voice dancing on the rhythms
Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sam Doores has performed in such bands as Hurray for the Riff Raff, the Tumbleweeds and the Deslondes. Often classified in the folk/country genre, in 2020 he released a self-titled album that “exposes another side of his musical personality,” wrote Jay Mazza in the February 2020 edition of OffBeat. “Recorded over several years in Berlin with copacetic producer and project instigator Anders ‘Ormen’ Christopherson as well as an international cast of co-conspirators, Sam Doores uses strings, vintage organs, marimbas, vibraphones and even an autoharp to create a moody, psychedelic vibe. Doores has fashioned an intimate, personal album that uses the studio as an instrument.”
Stone Cold Jzzle, a rap artist, was raised in the 7th Ward near the St. Bernard projects. He enjoyed some viral notoriety after his 2019 song “Water” was shared online by the LSU football squad and Odell Beckham Jr. as well as rapper G Herbo.
“I always wanted to do rap since I was three,” said Stone Cold Jzzle in an interview for OffBeat in February 2020. “I didn’t have the courage to do it until I went to college and I was going through some shit, facing eviction, girlfriend trouble. My friends from high school, they was doing music, so I just told them ‘Why don’t you bring the equipment down… I might just try to learn something.’ That was around the time my world was coming to an end. It was an outlet for me.”
For more information about the SXSW Music Festival showcasing artists, visit here.
