Trouble In The Streets - Shot out of a cannon into the Austin music scene, this eclectic electronic trio has already played with esteemed artists like George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic, the Rebirth Brass Band, and Grupo Fantasma. Lead singer, Nnedi Nebula Agbaroji, is a force of nature as a front woman and her vocal talent and charisma make Trouble In The Streets a band to watch in 2018.

Billy King and the Bad Bad Bad - William Reynolds and Cam Wren are two friends who played music together for years until they finally formed Billy King and the Bad Bad Bad in 2017 and knocked audiences off their feet with fast, theatrical hits like "Werewolf of Love" and "Night Terror." Playing bigger shows and fine-tuning an already electric live shows, Billy King and the Bad Bad Bad have a promising 2018 ahead of them.

Annabelle Chairlegs - A menacing and insane aura emanates from this psych-rock quartet that features a fiery front woman, Lindsey Mackin. Their music is entrancing and the band's mystique only serves to heighten the undeniable allure of such a delightful throwback sound. Their trajectory should keep them aimed for an exciting 2018.

Los Coast - Soulful vocals, intricate instrumentation, and a symbiosis of good vibes has made Los Coast a favorite in the Austin live-music circuit. A residency at C-boys nightclub and a slew of festival bookings elevated their profile and a new record deal is making this band's 2018 look brighter and brighter.

Magna Carda - Sprung from the college campus of St Edwards, this hip-hop trio is bringing a focus to the tragically neglected Austin rap scene. Beats and clever lyrics collide with MC, Megz Kelli, and the beat maker, Dougie Do, as they continue to impress with highly addictive and stylized songs that can only grow stronger in this new year.

 While SXSW features exotic music like throat-singers from the steppes of Mongolia or flute bands from the peaks of the Andes, we must not forget that some of most exhilarating music comes from our own backyard.  Here are 11 bands that will be slaying at SXSW this week.

1. Mobley (Post-Genre Pop)

Cutting vocals in the woods behind his college dorm. Mixing in the backseat of a sedan. Sneaking into the music department after hours to teach himself to play new instruments (and sneaking out before the faculty arrived in the morning). From the start, Mobley's work has been marked by solitude, ingenuity, and a drive that could only be called obsessive. Whether you experience his music on record or at one of his incredible live shows, the passion is palpable. Mobley grew up all over the world, from the Spanish Mediterranean to the California coast. Perhaps it's because of this itinerant childhood that he finds it so hard to sit still.

2. Night Drive (Synthpop)

Inspired by sci-fi cinematic landscapes, Night Drive creates modern synth-pop that explores the darker currents of abstract emotion. Infectious melodies wrapped in thoughtful lyrics with pulsing dance beats unveil a stylish, energetic sound that has been featured in film, tv and radio around the world. Touring and opening for international bands such as CHVRCHES, Robert DeLong,Tesla Boy, Miami Horror and The Psychedelic Furs, Night Drive has quickly garnered a reputation as a captivating, must see live show.

3. Leopold and His Fiction (Alt Rock)

For Leopold and His Fiction, creating an album as sublimely chaotic as Darling Destroyer took a lifetime of cultivating a kaleidoscopic musicality. Born and raised in Detroit, Daniel first began making music after finding a forgotten about guitar in his grandmother’s basement as a child. “It had only two strings, but I took it home and started studying immediately,” he recalls. He also played drums in a band at school and learned to play horns and bass, but his focus remained on the guitar. “I’m an only child and was always alone, but I was lucky enough to have an instrument I could bury myself in,” he says. “It was a kind of gold mine, having such an outlet growing up.”

4. Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears (Blues Rock)

Black Joe Lewis trawls the familiar intersection of blues, soul, funk, and garage rock, but he's got a few enlivening strategies to make the old formula feel fresh.

5. Los Coast (Soul Rock)

Los Coast's music is a punchy, psych-tinged, lyrical variety of soul.  For the band, comprised of Trey Privott, John Courtney, Megan Hartman, Damien Llanes, and Natlie Wright, this style of music is uniquely effective medium of communication.

6. Melat (R&B)

Born in Austin, Texas, Mélat is the eclectic soul of modern RnB. Mélat tells a story that is both challenging and inspiring crafted from her very own life experiences. It is a pure and honest reflection of her soul. From love, lust, success, to failure Mélat sings of what it means to be a human being simply longing to “be”.

7. Sweet Spirit (Cabaret Rock)

Quickly becoming the most anticipated live shows in Austin, Sweet Spirit is on a roll.  In between shows, the band found time to work with producer Steve Berlin (Los Lobos, Deer Tick) on their sophomore full-length St. Mojo. The new record comes out on April 7, 2017 on Austin label Nine Mile Records and features a bigger, more dynamic set of songs. Lead single "The Power" has already become a fan favorite at live shows, while the Queen-esque track "The Mighty" and Prince dance funk of "I Wanna Have You" take the band is exciting, unexpected new directions. Guest contributions from members of Grupo Fantasma, Mother Falcon and A Giant Dog help expand the band's already considerable sound.

8. Annabelle Chairlegs (Psych Rock)

Annabelle Chairlegs plays out around town often, exuding polished, glitzy, Sixties-inspired rock & roll fleshed out by guitar licks straddling the line between surf-y and noir. Helmed by Mackin's strange, arresting voice, usually either a powerful belt or contorted into theatrical yelping, the band commands the stage with intense authority.

9. Mr. Kitty (Gothtronica)

An artist creates to evoke a reaction, and Forrest and Isaac Ross Lemaire of Mr. Kitty are electro-goth sorcerers who succeed in creating an 8-bit dreamworld for their listeners.  Not quite neophytes, Mr. Kitty have had five previous releases, and their discography runs the gamut between wistful tracks of wintered melancholy to frenetic electro-bangers of seizure-inducing speed. The constant through all of their music is the gothic romanticism of Forrest's lyrics and the perpetually evolving innovativeness of Isaac's hard-hitting beats and crystalline synths.

10. CAPYAC (Electro-Funk)

CAPYAC is a surreal dance act made up of one half swamp baby (P. Sugz), one half agave plant (Potion). To question the origins of the band is to ponder the origin of humanity itself. When founding member Potion stumbled upon the name, half-conscious on his bedroom floor at 3 a.m., it was nonsense, much like the primordial soup from which life on this planet emerged.

11.  S U R V I V E (Instrumental Electronica)

S U R V I V E has been producing synth-heavy, horror-score-influenced compositions for years, and two of the group's members are known for crafting the critically acclaimed score for the popular Netflix series Stranger Things. For almost a decade, the band has explored these themes with drum machines and analog synths, shown on numerous EPs and on their first full-length, Mnq026 from 2012. Releasing their second full-length record 'RR7349' last September on Relapse Records, S U R V I V E kick off their 2017 globe-trotting, festival-heavy tour schedule with a series of shows for SXSW in their hometown of Austin, Texas.

Deli Readers,

Our Best of Austin Poll for Emerging Artists has been - as usual - a lengthy and painstaking journey which took us through prairies of numbers, horizons filled with band names, and a dense, (mostly) joyous rain of music. We have finally reached our destination and we can announce the final results!

1. CAPYAC

The Artist of the Year for The Deli Austin 2015, the artist voted in by our panel of Austin music folks in the know in tandem with you the public, is the inimitable future funk outfit and Austin standard carrier CAPYAC. To put it as blunt and forward as the good beats this act puts out, the win was no surprise. CAPYAC have taken their sound, their show and their presence in the music scene and have exploded them all to new heights this year. We once called them the 'smoothest music in Austin right now,' and not only has this sly scifi-appropriate spacefunk + beats duo lived up to that title with numerous spot-on spaced-out releases since our last review of them, they've also added 'most fun,' 'most consistent' and very possibly 'best live show in Austin, right now' to the list of claims they can make on the Live Music Capital of the World's local scene. Those alone are some damn chops to contend with, but since CAPYAC also had the single that was the biggest repeat play in The Deli Austin's offices this year with the cherry red, lazer-beats and deep funk glorious “Speedracer,” we really can't argue with this pick. It's been, and it continues to be, the age of CAPYAC in Austin, Texas.

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2. Annabelle Chairlegs

If there are two scenes producing at the top of their game in Austin right now that are most visible (out of many such scenes, let's not short this crazy city its talent), it'd be the beat scene, of which our contest winner CAPYAC is a member, and it would also be the psych rock side of this here music town. Among those acts bending the psych thing back around to new 2016-primed directions, Annabelle Chairlegs is perhaps the most exciting. They're also The Deli Austin's #2 Best Emerging Artist of 2015, an accomplishment this young and daring band has achieved due both to its embracing of the spirit of early psychedelic music and for where they branch off from that parent sound to express themselves in their own new and rebellious ways. They're as much punk and 80s/90s lush indie pop influenced as they are psych; pretty and layered when they're being edgy and poppy and druggy, and pretty even when they are actually trying to be pretty. It's hard to do both of those at the same time, but 2015's Watermelon Summer was a debut album that is very likely to be the soundtrack of this summer in Austin for the young and ultra-hip in the hippy/psych scene, just as it was last summer. These young art partiers, with their bubblegum hair-sporting banshee songstress and dreamy pop singles, are one of the acts we think very well could break out of this city in a big way. With a second place showing in our contest, it looks like the rest of Austin agrees with us.

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3. Tomar and the FCs

The thing about real, good soul is that it says it right there in the name: it's gotta hit you in the soul. That shit can't be faked; though many try to achieve it, soul isn't something that can be tried at or denied when it's heard in its real form. It hits you, in your own soul like a burning weight, and you know you're hearing it done right. And, when you hear it done right, you know just why it is so good, and why that's important. Tomar and the FCs, our third place band this year, are soul. They're soul, and they're good, and it's cool as fuck. They put out songs that sound like new classics, like the guys writing and performing them know their musical history and just went and inserted themselves into the soul canon through the sheer quality and dedication and, to bring it back to the point, the pure fucking soul of their music. Hell, Tomar and the FCs, aren't trying to bring soul back, they've done it. They are soul, and it's just plain feel good badass sing-it-out music. To do what they do with an old sound in a day that's so aware of what's come before, and to make it feel fresh and damn fine to boogie down to, is tremendous, and Tomar and the FCs well deserve the showing they've made in our poll.

Check out our poll's top 15 below, and don't forget to get even deeper, exploring all the finalists organized by genre:

ALT ROCK - FOLK ROCK - HIP HOP + FUNK - INDIE POP - INDIE ROCK -PSYCH - PUNK/METAL - ROOTS MUSIC - SINGER-SONGWRITER

BEST OF 2015 POLL FOR EMERGING NKC ARTISTS ****** FINAL RESULTS - TOP 15 ******

ARTIST J OS R TOT   1 Capyac 8.5   0.012 8.512 2 Annabelle Chairlegs 7.5   0.028 7.528 3 Tomar & the FCs 6.5   0 6.5 4 Loteria 6   0.015 6.015 5 Cross Record 5.5   0.005 5.505 6 Carl Sagan's Skate Shoes 5.5   0.004 5.504 7 Super Thief 5.5   0.001 5.501   Mayeux & Broussard 4.5   0.014 4.514 9 The Cuckoos 3   1.5 4.5 10 Daniel Eyes & The Vibes 3   1 4 11 The Halfways 3.5   0.372 3.872 12 Sailor Poon 3   0.01 3.01 13 Hard Proof   3 0.003 3.003 14 Aaron Miller aka Multi-Tracker 3   0.002 3.002   Katy Kirby 3   0.002 3.002 Legend: J = Jurors, R = Deli Readers, OS = Open Submissions

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If you wonder how this chart came into existence, here is how it all went down: first, we let the local bands submit their music (for free), and got our Deli editors to pick the nominees. Then we polled a list of 15+ Austin scene expert (our jury) and asked them to nominate 3 more bands of their choice each (3 points for the top choice, then 2 and 1). Then we polled our readers. We tried to keep things open for each single genre, from Indie Rock to Roots Music to Hip Hop.

If you are a geek interested in all the subtelties related to how this poll works, you can read its rules here (happy reading!). But if all you care about is the awesome new music Austin produced in the year 2015, this list is all you need. Enjoy!

Many Thanks to our Jurors: Trevor Talley (The Deli Austin), Howdy Darrell (The White Horse), Austen Bailey (The Parish), Tyson Swindell (Red 7), Jason McNeely (Hotel Vegas), Ashley Bradley (Ovrld) Ben Webster (The North Door) Alice Geaccone (Witchxxdoctor) Matt Reilly (KUT Austin) Maggie Lea (Cheer Up Charlies) Margaret Galton (C3) Diane Scott (Continental Club) Shelley Neuman (ATX Streetstyle) Marcus Lawyer (Transmission Events) Jonathon Gaylon (American Icon Records) Gillian Driscoll (Sound Dessert) Alexander Dubois (Self)

Hope you'll find some awesome new artists you weren't aware of!

The Deli's Staff

Whew boy y’all! The Readers’ Poll for the 2015 Austin Deli Artist of the Year contest has done gone and finished, and what a hell of a thing it was. We deeply appreciate all of the nominated artists and the fans taking the time to put your votes in, and we think the results are pretty darn interesting.

1. Wonderbitch

Wonderbitch takes the whole shebang for the Readers’ Poll after mobilizing their fan base, which is obviously ravenous for the hard prog-psych riffs and heady concepts this group offers up. Wonderbitch made a big splash on the scene in 2015 with their eponymous record, and it’s obvious that it hit big with the fans from the way they voted their little clicking fingers off for the group.

2. The Cuckoos

Young psych rockers dominate this list, and none are younger or of a purer old-school psych sound than The Cuckoos. A very new band, big things loom in the future for this Doors-esque act that elicited some truly impassioned commenting from fans on their poll page. It was close there for a while, but a steady push of voting bolstered by a late-game surge saw The Cuckoos take the crown in the Psych Rock category this year.

3. Daniel Eyes & The Vibes

Few bands have shot to local glory as quickly as Daniel Eyes & The Vibes, whose first EP is barely a month old but who already have a huge fan base in the city. Riding some intense hype from live shows and early singles, this true rock ‘n roll band has stormed through Austin this Winter, and it’s very likely you’ll be hearing their name no matter the season for a while to come.

4. The Bishops

The all-family silky smooth hip-hop act The Bishops has barely been around in its current form, but the three members each have a damned extensive catalog of top notch music as solo artists and in collaborations, often with each other. They’ve barely been together officially as a named trio, but heads around the city and far beyond have had the beats and the bars from these kids on repeat for a while. This group is pretty much destined to hit it big- they almost certainly have by far the most listens on SoundCloud across their four accounts out of any of our nominees bar none)- so if you voted for them here, feel proud of yourself for getting in on the ground floor with one of the city, and the nation’s, most exciting young groups.

5. Kev Bev & the Woodland Creatures

Apparently the answer in fair ole Austin to that timeless musical question, “Who wants the funk?” is “We want the funk.” Welp, it's a good thing then that Kev Bev & the Woodland Creatures are here to turn this mother out with their big funk jams. Turning out big time is also what their fans did to the Hip Hop + Funk poll, where they slid in just barely behind newcomers The Bishops to take second in that poll and fifth overall. In terms of just straight-up fun music, Kev Bev et al. are second to none in the city, however, nor do they slack on the number of members front. This is the kind of band that almost needs to be seen live to really know them, and luckily for us all, that’s an opportunity Kev Bev & The Woodland Creatures provide in spades to the city of Austin.

6. The Halfways

The Halfways found themselves in a hell of a contest against upstarts The Cuckoos in the Psychcategory, and it’s not a damn little piece of surprising to us that they made our top 6 after the year they’ve had. Excellent, frequent shows, a few dead-on newpsych singles and one of the best-received and more critically acclaimed records in the city with EP The Halfways were what led this band to dominance in the burgeoning Austin psych scene this year, but in reality, it’s the hazy, dreamworld sound they cull from the ether to play in your ears like a hippy in a good sunny field that make them one of the top acts working in Austin today.

Honorable Mention: The Cover Letter, Sophia Johnson, Annabelle Chairlegs

Once again: enormous and buttery thanks to all of the acts and bands who promoted the poll, and to all of you loverly fans out there with your awesome ears to hear this good stuff with and your fingers to choose what you like the best. You really da bes.

By the way, if you’re interested in the details of each poll by category and would like to see how it all went down, here are the links to each genre’s results:

ALT ROCK - FOLK ROCK - HIP HOP + FUNK - INDIE POP - INDIE ROCK - PSYCH - PUNK/METAL - ROOTS MUSIC - SINGER-SONGWRITER

Congrats to everyone who came up big in the poll, and stay tuned to this site to find out what act is our overall Deli Austin 2015 Artist of the Year. We’ll be releasing that as soon as we add the tally together for the juror votes and the Readers’ Poll combined, and we guarantee it’ll be some damn fine music.

It is Austin, after all.

The Deli Austin Staff

Annabelle Chairlegs' music and video for track "Axe Me If I Care" is all dreamed-out California sunsoaked indie pop. Lead wailer Lindsey Mackin's voice and look are like someone took a hair off Valley Girl-era Bonnie Hayes' punk/pop head (not, to be clear, pop punk) and did mad music science to spit out a new creature that had Hayes' gripping vocal abilities, but was a bit more hippy-ish. In fact, if it weren't for the punklike edge in Mackin's voice and the pared down drum sound, Annabelle Chairlegs tracks sound nearly straight out of the 60s. Throw that punk twist on it, and drop a little bit of 90s alt rock jangle, and it's workin' for me. These guys are raw and rough, but the potential is there for this band to go big places.

Annabelle Chairlegs have an album in the works and are about to get their young asses on the road for a tour that kicks off on January 28 at Cheer Up Charlies downtown with ILEZO, Cucumber & The Suntans, Who & The Fucks. Get there, and get gaudy with these kids.