Welcome to the latest in a week-long series of spotlights profiling the bands and artists performing at the 2016 Boston & Beyond party at SXSW, a collaborative effort between Berklee College of Music and Vanyaland. Our third annual event — and Berklee’s 11th SXSW party overall — goes down Thursday, March 17 at Austin’s Brush Square Park, located at 409 East 5th St., next to the Convention Center. The party is co-presented by Berklee Alumni, The Red Room @ Cafe 939, and Heavy Rotation Records, and is all ages and open to SXSW badge holders. Get on the list without charge by RSVPing via EventBrite. Additional info and music from each of the performing bands and artists can be found here.
Previous spotlights: Lady Pills, mar | co, Great Grandpa, Plastic Waves, Rann, M+E
IAN, 4 p.m. set time
It’s only fitting that a band with a growing reputation on both coasts has now set its sights on the flyover states. But that’s the plan this week for IAN, the Los Angeles-born, Boston-based dream-pop trio that might form a BAMF guitar-gang with Great Grandpa and Lady Pills” target=”_blank”>Lady Pills after our SXSW party on Thursday. That is, if they have time — they’ll be blasting over to play the Hardly Art showcase after we’re all done with Brush Square Park to rock out with Tacocat, Shannon and the Clams, Protomartyr and others.
All this love will only add to the growing exposure of Jillian Medford’s band (“Jill-IAN”, get it?), which began as a solo project and has lately been bouncing back and forth with ease between the scene underground and the rock club circuit. Last summer’s self-titled record was a brilliant blast of fuzzy guitar-pop, and we aren’t alone in singing these praises. Writes Stumble On Tapes: “We adore IAN, they have a way of infusing the perfect pop song with vulnerabilities and rock n roll… She’s just brilliant, Give it a listen.”
Impose Magazine, Allston Pudding, and the Boston Globe also sang sweet praises over the past year, and Boston Hassle writes of Ian’s “legendary sad-girl anthems”: “By embracing a bit more noisiness, IAN creates determined energy and the songs deliver the emotions behind them with confidence. Yet they are more than just garage-set rock, and the tracks utilize little tricks to give them unique dreamy qualities.”
Rest your head, child, and listen to IAN’s lovely jams below…
