Alex The Astronaut, Children Collide, Little Quirks among ten Aussies invited to SXSW

Alex The Astronaut, Children Collide and Little Quirks are among the latest Australian acts invited to showcase at South By Southwest (SXSW) March 11-20 in Austin, Texas.

323 artists from around the world were unveiled in the second round of artists.

TMN revealed this week that Alex The Astronaut’s (Alexandra Lynn) new single ‘Growing Up’ appears in the trailer for the second season of Bump, with the season set for release December 26.

Children Collide are heading off on their rescheduled and expanded Time Itself Tour.

After a messy split in 2012, singer/guitarist Johnny Mackay and drummer Ryan Caesar reunited with new bassist Chelsea Wheatley and have been selling out shows since.

Little Quirks, the indie folk outfit from the NSW Central Coast made up of sisters and cousins, are on an extensive Australian tour until March.

Electropop singer-songwriter Phebe Starr from the NSW country town of Dorrigo made waves on triple j with the single ‘AIR’ (off her February-due debut album Heavy Metal Flower Petal) which she co-wrote with Vlossom‘s Alister Wright and co-directed the video with Ella Chau.

It’s not the first SXSW show for Chela, Fremantle-born Melbourne raised Australian-Filipino artist, producer and filmmaker Chelsea Wheatley.

She played there and at Coachella, and opened for Classixx and The Presets on their North American tours, and moved to Los Angeles.

Eliza Hull, a producer and musician based in Castlemaine, Victoria, this week presented Access All Areas on Double J where she interviewed her favourite artists with disabilities.

With a physical disability herself, she produced podcasts on parenting and relationships with a disability as well as composing for American TV shows Awkward, Teen Wolf and Saving Hope, and Australian feature film Swallow.

Pictured: Children Collide

Sydney-based Indigo Sparke also makes a return visit to SXSW after her debut in 2019.

Named after the Duke Ellington song ‘Mood Indigo’ by her jazz playing parents, she studied acting before teaching herself to play guitar and making debut EP Night Bloom in 2016.

Adelaide’s Tom West based himself in the US in 2018 “to try my luck as a touring singer, guitar player and writer”, and recently released the live-in-the-studio Strange Visions.

New Zealand-born Melbourne based Sarah Mary Chadwick made her mark on her 2021 album Me & Ennui Are Friends, Baby, which she exorcised a “massive clusterfuck of a year” with songs about her attempted suicide, a negative relationship with her mother and a lament for her late father.

Enigmatic Adelaide chanteuse MANE (Paige Renee Court) whose smoky voice complemented her blues-based sound on debut EP House Of Horror went on to score triple j support and an APRA award.

Her latest single ‘Hi Lo’ is launched at the Lion Arts Factory on December 17.

The first round of SXSW artists, unveiled in October, included Grace Cummings and Her Band (Melbourne), Jo Schornikow (Melbourne) and WANDERERS (Adelaide).