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" From Bob Boilen:  Patrick Watson Okay, easy prediction here, since the best show I saw at SXSW was Patrick Watson: I predict Patrick Watson will release one of the best albums of 2012. Unlike the brilliant 2009 release Wooden Arms, this new record Adventures in Your Own Backyard is going to be a hit. Watson is going on the road opening for Andrew Bird, and Bird&amp;#039;s audience will appreciate his story songs \u2014 tales wrapped in finely arranged swatches of piano melodies perfect percussion and the right does of guitar and violin.  CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A SONG FROM NPR. Polica It&amp;#039;s singer Channy Leneagh&amp;#039;s voice and live performance that drew me into this music. On record, the production is king and, in fact, producer Ryan Olson is best thought of as the creator of this band \u2014 not just the sound-sculptor. Great pop, contagious tunes. The album, Give You The Ghost, is a bit too filled with the singular auto-tuned effect on her voice for my tastes, but most of that doesn&amp;#039;t appear live, and Polica won me over. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A SONG FROM NPR. La Vida Boheme When I saw this band at NPR&amp;#039;s day party at the Parish, I flashed to seeing The Clash in 1979. It was the fierceness, the original sound, the hodgepodge of styles \u2014 it was the clash of cultures and sound. La Vida Boheme are from Caracas, Venezuela. Their music doesn&amp;#039;t mimic The Clash, but it does have that fresh vision. Live, the four men dressed in white, splattered from head-to-toe in blue and green paint, which made for a stunning visual, sure, but their segue from song-to-song and style-to-style was the real surprise. It was also cohesive and commanding. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A SONG FROM NPR. From Robin Hilton:  Gashcat If you love Neutral Milk Hotel but wish the band had put out more than one record in the last 15 years, then listen to Austin&amp;#039;s own Gashcat. The group&amp;#039;s music is a glorious mess of fuzzy, potent rock with sometimes quirky instrumentation and gnarled electronics. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN. Mr. Gnome The latest record from this Cleveland-based, guy-girl duo is the appropriately titled Madness in Miniature. Their songs are both small and intimate, but also dark, chaotic, and explosive, like the soundtrack to some twisted fairy tale. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN. Slow Club Another guy-girl duo, this time from Sheffield, England. Singer and drummer Rebecca Taylor has a voice like Adele&amp;#039;s, but the music isn&amp;#039;t R&amp;amp;amp;B or soul. It&amp;#039;s more a mix of infectious, joyful pop and sweetly playful rock. That said, there&amp;#039;s a hint of mystery quietly creeping under it all. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN. ** From Stephen Thompson:  Deafheaven My NPR colleague Mike Katzif called Deafheaven &amp;quot;the Sigur Ros of death metal,&amp;quot; and he&amp;#039;s right on the money. The San Francisco band&amp;#039;s music heaves and builds and pummels majestically, and then singer George Clarke lurches defensively and shrieks angrily like a mother hawk protecting her young. Brutal and bracing, with a shoegazing indie-rock band&amp;#039;s ear for graceful melodicism. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN. Now, Now You can win stuffed animals at county fairs bigger than each of the two women who lead the Minneapolis rock trio Now, Now. But the band&amp;#039;s sweet, sophisticated songs are big, assertive, and full-blooded \u2014 swoony and spiky and confident, with real star quality. Death Cab For Cutie&amp;#039;s Christopher Walla produced and released Now, Now&amp;#039;s new album Threads, and could be spotted lugging the band&amp;#039;s gear after the show I saw. You could tell that his stake in Now, Now was as emotional as it was financial, and it was easy to hear why. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM NPR. Kishi Bashi Singer and multi-instrumentalist K Ishibashi, who often performs with Of Montreal, got rejected for an official SXSW showcase, but don&amp;#039;t be shocked if he winds up headlining one of its biggest stages in 2013. Looping his singing, beatboxing, and violin lines, Ishibashi packed a wine bar&amp;#039;s patio with enthralled fans of his gorgeous, charming, utterly disarming toy-box pop. Tucked into SXSW&amp;#039;s margins, he served as a reminder that the festival, for all its 2,000-bands-deep massiveness, still can&amp;#039;t contain music&amp;#039;s awesome capacity for mystery and discovery. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A SONG FROM NPR. ** From Ann Powers:  Zeus Remember the band Stillwater from the movie Almost Famous? Toronto-based Zeus is that band, if its members had included Paul McCartney and taken a lot more acid. As fun as 21st-century classic rock gets. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; Lady LeShurr A diminutive rapper with a supersonic flow, Lady LeShurr made her American debut by turning a room in the swank Driskill Hotel into a raucous reggae dancehall. She commanded her band to create a new song on the spot, covered Chris Brown&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Look At Me Now,&amp;quot; and arguably bested Busta Rhymes&amp;#039;s original rap \u2014 further evidence that women rappers with skills are defining hip-hop&amp;#039;s next era. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; Nas The great Queens rapper is hardly a newcomer, but his Broadway-worthy showcase based on the classic album Illmatic showed him reinvigorated. He played a hot new single, too. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; MORE FROM NPR: SXSW Videos, Podcasts + More  MORE FROM ESQUIRE.COM: Andy Langer&amp;#039;s Top 30 Artists @ SXSW 2012 &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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