SXSW: Alexander, the Naked and Famous, Chapel Club, the Belle Brigade

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[Too much time traipsing, not enough time writing and posting – that’s the story of our SXSW so far. In the interests of catching up:]

Alexander (the Phoenix) – Alex Ebert’s wee-hours set on Wednesday night at the KCRW-FM showcase was something of a curiosity: How would the Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros frontman present the music from his solo album live? It was, after all, a DIY affair, every handclap and knee-slap and kazoo interlude, recorded in his Echo Park bedroom. It turned out to be something in the way of Magnetic Zeros Lite, with Ebert fronting a sextet that included Chris Richard and Christian Letts from the Zeros and Darker My Love’s Rob Barbato. And the vibe was much the same as a Magnetic Zeros’ show, with Ebert, charismatic and direct with the audience as ever, leading the band through the loose folk and hip-hop-inflected pop on his surprising solo effort.

While technical problems delayed the start, Ebert made nice and posed for photos with the fans up front, and once underway (with the sound still not to the band’s liking – more reverb, please), he soared affably through tracks such as “Awake My Body,” “Truth” and “Remember Our Heart.” At this point in his career, Ebert could walk onstage and do finger-painting and draw a crowd. NPR would probably approve.

The Naked and Famous (the Phoenix) – The winsome Kiwis’ best songs still sound like the ones MGMT left off its first album, but that hasn’t stopped the Aucklanders from turning into an indie-pop juggernaut. The quintet shook off a case of the nerves, some unnerving sound problems and a shaky stage (when Thom Powers starting pogoing, it almost shook the synths off their stand) to deliver a crisp set of tunes from their album “Passive Me, Aggressive You.” The highlight was “Young Blood,” a four-minute bouncing ball that got heads bobbing and tired bodies moving. Perfect for the midnight hour, or all hours, for that matter.

Chapel Club (the Phoenix) – London quintet Chapel Club makes the brand of gauzy, sprawling Britpop that has soothed heartache for better than two decades, but to advertise the stuff on their album “Palace” as “epic” (a local music director’s word) is a bit of an oversell. Their anthems Wednesday didn’t quite carry the room, let alone be ready for arenas and festivals – although in this age, the latter will likely welcome them. Frontman Lewis Bowman inhabits the clubbers’ melancholy convincingly enough, and the soundscape-y “All the Eastern Girls” probably would have made us tingle in 1995, but a lot of water has flowed beneath Britpop’s wall of sound since then.

The Belle Brigade (the Phoenix) – Fronted by Los Angeles sister/brother duo of Barbara and Ethan Gruska, the Brigade are revving their engines for the April 19 release of their self-titled debut album. After sprinting through their Wednesday night set, the Gruskas and bandmates hardly looked as if they needed more tuneup. The Brigade’s smile-a-minute folk-rock relies heavily on the siblings’ harmonies (three-part, when guitarist Alex Silverman chimes in), and they were spot-on during a set that recalled the relentless optimism of the ’60s. Get happy.