SXSW 2011: Austinist Teams Up With The Windish Agency, Laneway Festival and Eat Your Own Ears

Cloud Control is possibly the hottest act to come out of Australia right now. Building their name on early releases that showed a love of folky, laid-back summer rock, these Sydney natives make gorgeous group harmonies, a blissful psyche-tinged sound and some stupendously great, soaring songs.

Cloud Nothings formed in 2009, when Dylan Baldi decided to drop out of college and pursue the lo-fi indie pop music he had created in his parents’ basement, making power-pop with energy, precision and hooks. This Cleveland foursome provides excitement, emotion and teenage urgency in every groove.

L.A.’s Foster the People follow in the same outrageously catchy footsteps as MGMT or Phoenix, adding shuffling beats and whistles to boot. Their summery, sing-along choruses are worthy of their hero, Brian Wilson.

Ardently warm-hearted multi-instrumentalists Givers make joyous dream-pop, all whirling keys, Dixieland horns and Afro-pop drums combined with cracked tenor vocals, and a sensibility all set to appeal to fans of Flaming Lips or Vampire Weekend.

Hanni El Khatib is a singing, songwriting, multi-instrumentalist and all-round genius. With his sinewy guitar and wry, whiskey-glazed voice, Hanni creates a mix of bluesy garage-rock soul, dedicated personally to “anyone who's ever been shot or hit by a train”

BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens has earned a loyal listenership for his long-running weekly show and is also the mastermind behind SWN festival in Cardiff. Expect a DJ set presenting “the best new unsigned, underground and under the radar music".

Part of the same young musical family as Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, Johnny Flynn et al, Noah and the Whale first captured our hearts with the folk-pop perfection of ‘Five Years Time’, but the deal was sealed with latest offering ‘Last Night On Earth’, a straight-ahead, upbeat slice of brilliance inspired by the end of singer Charlie Fink’s relationship with the aforementioned Ms. Marling.

Purveyors of pulsing electro-punk, Royal Bangs first caught the world’s attention at their dynamic performance at Lollapalooza 2010. Augmenting distorted guitars with wild glitches and bleeps to frenetic effect, this Knoxville five-piece is the one to watch for 2011.

The Holidays formed at university in Sydney, and have since spent their musical career making bright, buoyant pop-rock. The Australian foursome of Simon Jones, Will Magnus, Alex Kortt and Andrew Kerridge describe their music as “dueling guitar and vocal melodies with upbeat rhythms. A mix of rough and sweet, happy and gloomy.”

Originally hailing from the Dominican Republic, George Lewis - a.k.a. Twin Shadow - makes synth-led bedroom music that sounds simultaneously utterly new wave and thoroughly fresh. Beneath the prominent synth-string vamps on many of his tracks are weirdly quacking keys and chinking guitars, countering the apparent '80s aesthetic to result in music that is nostalgic and original all at once.