Does Splendour's SXSW Show Give Clues To Festival Line-Up?

The annual Splendour In The Grass camping festival is always a hot point of speculation in the months leading up to the event, but this year we may have something of a more concrete source from which to base such conjecture — namely, the just-released line-up for Splendour and Falls Music & Arts Festival's joint South By Southwest showcase party, being held in Austin on Wednesday, 18 March.

There's a wide range of up-and-coming talent on offer, some of whom should presumably be shoe-ins for stage spots should Splendour (or Falls) come knocking: Tkay Maidza, UK outfit Until The Ribbon Breaks, Ireland's Walking On Cars, Sweden's Urban Cone, Icelandic rockers Kaleo, and a slew of US-grown artists, such as New York-based eight-piece San Fermin, Texan troubadour Max Frost, NY indie-dance outfit Joywave, Buenos Aires-born Brooklyn resident Tei Shi, and LA two-piece HOLYCHILD.

Splendour isn't the only Aussie festival to be staging their own showcase party at SXSW, either; St Jerome's Laneway Festival also recently lifted the veil on who they'd be welcoming at Austin, and — with Laneway's SXSW parties historically having a pretty decent strike rate for eventual line-up acts — it's not totally unreasonable to assume that at least a handful of artists from among their stable of scheduled performers will end up in Australia for the next instalment, including controversial up-and-comers Viet Cong, Sydney boys Mansionair, English electronic muso East India Youth, eclectic US muso Son Lux, and British performer Jack Garratt.

Laneway's SXSW party also goes down on Wednesday, 18 March, if you happen to be in the area. Of course, with Splendour still several months away, Falls not due till the end of the year, and 2015's Laneway freshly behind us, it's likely to be a while till we know for sure whether any of the showcase acts will be sticking with their sponsor-festivals' stages for the main event down the track.

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