A three piece band with members hailing from several parts of the United States, Sun Araw was what you can claim to be my first showcase at SXSW, as they played the Pitchfork opening party at the Mohawk on Tuesday night. The driving force behind the band is Cameron Stallones, who is also a member of the band Magic Lantern. Despite my relative newness to the band, they have been steadily releasing music since the mid 2000s, including last year’s release the Ancient Romans.
Sun Araw’s psychedelic layered trippy space rock jam music take awhile to build so given the festival’s short time slot, I felt that the act’s showcase on Tuesday didn’t quite mesh. With two synthesizers in tow, the band would layer looped drum beats over effects, gradually adding in distorted vocals (and some guitars at certain point) and building up the sounds until it eventually turned into a full out song. Which for the most part, sounded decent, however the slow/similar buildups for each song made it seem all too familiar after awhile and it became easy to get distracted, especially with all the buzz going on every where at SXSW.
Sun Araw’s next showcase is March 17th, at 11 pm at the Mohawk