Read it digitally here.

P.S. 10k free copies of this issue hit the street of Austin during SXSW Music week!

 SXSW is upon us.

And for all the "activation events," free drinks, networking opportunities and NFT nonsense filling up space and time in this year's schedule, those of us who know and love and have desperately missed SXSW know what this magical week-and-a-half is really about.

And that's music. Music filling every corner of this funky little city, pouring out of every venue and parking garage and empty street corner and pothole. Music of all flavors and varieties, from all over the world, for every one of us. Music as it was meant to be heard: loud, overwhelming, unstoppable.

If there's anything bad about SXSW — and there really, really isn't — it's that there's just too much music. I know — I can't believe I'm saying those words either. But SXSW is the ultimate conundrum for those of us who want to see it all, who want to be everywhere, who want to hear every single band in excruciating detail. It's simply impossible.

But that's why we're here: to save you some time and trouble, and to make sure that you use every minute wisely. We've done the leg work, so you can put your mind at ease, and let your ears (and legs) pick up the slack.

We have our favorite musicians soon to come, but for now, it's our pleasure to publish a not-quite-comprehensive list of the best music showcases (some official, many not) blessing this town from March 12th-20th. Check out some tunes, pencil in some possibilities, and find us on the dance-floor. We'll be easy to spot: wherever someone is skanking, moshing, popping, locking, dropping a little too hard — that's where we'll be.

Flip through the airtable below, follow some links, RSVP to everything and enjoy the infinite possibilities that await. A little hint — click "View larger version" in the bottom left-hand corner to browse more comfortably. And shoot us a follow at https://www.instagram.com/thedelimag.atx/ to stay up to date on where we are, what we're most excited for, and where the best bands are going next.

Let's get a little weird together.  

FREE Eventm RSVP here! Info about Day One here!

For our upcoming Austin Pedal & Synth Expo Showcase, we are excited to get to feature the music of a couple of NYC locals. The electronic music Beshken makes is meditative and complex, weaving between digital and acoustic instruments with dreamlike results. His latest track, “Cursed”, picks its way between honey smooth synths and dissonant vocal effects, reflecting on the mental revolutions between sleep and insomnia. On the other end, while their lyrics too reflect on sleepless thoughts, the music of CLAVVS is rather lucid. The production on their most recent single “Devils I Know” places the vocals at the forefront of a hypnotic and unexpectedly baroque electronic backdrop. The Expo will be held on March 16th at the Chugging Monkey - listen to CLAVVS, Beshken and the other artists who will appear below. - Sunny Betz 

Posture, the sophomore EP by Brooklyn's atmospheric synthpop duo Haulm, features an aged desert landscape contained within a thick white border. It’s a perfect fit for the brooding, dark, and spartan work laid down over the release’s five tracks; one can almost picture an unknown beast slouching from the sandy landscape against the dissonant keys of Reed Kackley, as JT Norton’s distant, almost fugue-state vocals weaves in and out. It’s an EP oozing with atmosphere that’s curated using relatively few musical elements, and speaks volumes to Haulm’s penchant for fine tuning sparse synths and the human voice into engaging, mysterious soundscapes.

You can catch Haulm at SXSW on March 12th and 15th - until then, stream Posture below. -Connor Beckett McInerney (@b_ck_tt)

Punishing isn’t the first word you’d think to describe Soft Kill, an official SXSW artist, but the more their gothic barrages of post-punk and shoegaze pummel into you, the apter the label becomes. On Savior, the Portland-based outfit buries most of their synthesizers into a thundering vessel of fuzz and shadowy guitars. Like streetlights quickly appearing and vanishing again as you drive past them, moments of joy appear only to get smothered in a wave of rumbling toms and a peal of crashing cymbals. It’s a relentless hail of gloom and doom, something akin to The Cure without reveling in any of the performative aesthetics of goth music; Soft Kill is purely here for the raw ennui.

-By Tucker Pennington