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Lido Pimienta
Colombian immigrant Lido Pimienta was raised in Canada, and lives in Ontario. Yet her home country roots run deep. Her experimental album, 2016’s La Papessa, won the coveted Polaris Prize, and she addressed the Miss Universe controversy with her latest full-length, Miss Colombia. Backstage at ACL Fest, she flexes her otherwordly vocal chords on “Te Queria”, a spare and driving performance.
Dehd
Oh boy, after two long weekends out at Zilker Park, we’re betting the vast majority of fest-goers are dead tired after Austin City Limits. Not us though! Our impeccable multimedia team’s been hard at work turning around an exclusive batch of intimate, backstage performances, starting today with Dehd. Six years since their eponymous debut, these Chicago indie rockers dropped their fourteen-track fourth full-length Blue Skies back in late May. Post-Blue Skies, Dehd’s been dominating a tour that extends to Scandinavia and the UK before a three-night New Year’s Eve wrap-up back in their hometown’s Empty Bottle.
That tour included a couple pit stops here in town for our humble festival, and following the first of two Sunday afternoon performances on the T-Mobile stage, Dehd was kind enough to treat us to something a little more stripped down than what the rest of the fest got. Rather than double down on their usual dose of decibels, instead Dehd took a minimalist approach for the arrangement of Blue Skies‘ short-but-sweet anxiety-inspired album opener, “Control”
Luna Luna
Given the recent shift in seasons (plus a gorgeous full moon casting joy across Zilker during Weekend One), we’d be remiss if we didn’t listen back to Luna Luna. Following up their third full-length Flower Moon (and a steadily growing brand of tantalizing visuals), the Austin-via-Dallas indie-pop project made their official ACL Fest premiere by ringing in the afternoon rays during Sunday One on the Barton Springs stage.
Shortly afterwards they managed to squeeze all five live players into KUTX’s backstage pop-up space, where they treated us to comfy rendition of one of Flower Moon‘s centerpieces, “Call Me Up“. Take a look back to the mesh sesh in the video below and celebrate democracy alongside Luna Luna via livestream on November 8th for the #iVoted virtual festival.
iLe
Just a couple weeks ago, on the verge of her third full-length Nacarile, iLe treated us to “Traguito”, the record’s lead single whose studio version features Veracruz superstar Natalia Lafourcade. Nacarile drops on Friday, iLe is confirmed for SXSW 2023, and “Traguito” awaits you in the pop-up video above.
Danielle Ponder
True to her surname, Danielle Ponder has no holds spending time deep in thought. In fact, that introspection somewhat recently led her to an objectively risky shift – leaving the financial security of life as a lawyer to pursue her dreams of becoming an R&B-soul “songstress”.
Como Las Movies
October KUTX Artists of the Month Como Las Movies drew a good size crowd at their early afternoon ACL Fest slot on the big stage. See Austin’s Nelson Valente Aguilar and company, caught backstage at ACL fusing synths and a modern spin on traditional Latin grooves with unreleased song “Feedback Cumbiero.”
Genesis Owusu
Last time through Austin, Ghanian-Aussie tour de force Genesis Owusu played with only a trio of dancers. Yet he brought along a backup band for his riveting performances at ACL Fest. Whatever the backing, Owusu’s intensity and language command your attention. Backstage at ACL, he plays “A Song About Fishing”, which is clearly about much more: “To dwell in these waters is a foolish way/To believe one night, that I’ll win the day.”
Samia
Samia Finnerty’s parents are actors, and she’s done a fair amount of that herself. But it’s her brutally honest songs, uncouched in metaphors, and more so, the gliding ache in her voice, that make you sit up and take notice of this 25-year-old songwriter. She’s working on her new album, Honey, out early next year. But she and guitarist Boone Wallace play a version of “Stellate”, off her 2020 release, The Baby, backstage at ACL Fest.
Jake Wesley Rogers
Hard to believe this powerhouse vocalist and oversized talent once was hidden in small-town Missouri. His stage persona bloomed in Nashville. Elton John is an obvious reference to Rogers’ music, and a big Rogers fan. Jake signed to Warner Records and his newest EP LOVE is out now. Backstage at ACL, he performs “Pluto”.
Happie Hoffman
Happie Hoffman started playing music while at college in Bloomington IN. Her music has a background in deep spirituality, as well as pop success with her former duo “Eric and Happie”, and she carries elements of both forward in her solo career. Staking her independence, her latest EP is Heartbreak Season.
Tamino
Talented musicians can seemingly pull magical moments out of thin air, even in less than ideal conditions. Like a hot tent backstage at a festival with 80,000 music fans and million-dollar sound systems competing for your attention. That’s exactly what Belgian-Egyptian singer-songwriter Tamino did when he picked up the Gibson in our pop-up recording studio during the first weekend of the Austin City Limits music festival and played us “Fascination” off of his just released sophomore album, Sahar. As you can hear, it turned out to be the perfect introduction to the beautiful voice and bright-eyed songwriting that has earned him comparisons to Jeff Buckley.
RIPE
Signed to Glassnote Records, Boston’s Ripe has steadily built a big national following in the jam band arena. Vocalist Robbie Wulfsohn and the rest of his band are all Berklee School of Music alums, so there’s fusion in the mix, too, as you can hear in this ACL backstage session.
