East to Southwest: Previews of SXSW 2025 Showcases Featuring Acts from East Asia
Joined by Michael from Mando Gap, we highlight our picks of artists from Japan, China and Taiwan playing this year's SXSW
If you’re looking for exciting artists from Asia to follow, South by Southwest isn’t a bad place to start. Every year, the festival hosts several showcases presenting acts from countries across Asia—this year’s includes Japan, China, Taiwan, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand—to crowds out in Austin, Texas. Even if you can’t make it out to the city, like us, the line-ups of those shows are worth browsing if only to sample some of the buzz coming out of its respective countries. With our guest Michael Hong from the great Mandopop newsletter Mando Gap, we highlighted a few out of the many acts from Japan, China and Taiwan playing SXSW simply as recommendations to some great music. But if you’re going to be out there in Texas, hope it can be a nice primer to the live music you can potentially check out very soon.
You can also find Michael on X here.
Tokyo Den-nou
Country: Japan
Presented by: Sounds from Japan - March 13, 11 p.m. @ Elysium
Tokyo Den-nou rank among the top units from the Denonbu media project through their sharp curation of EDM-pop. From their digital-idol costumes to the neon beat-drop pyrotechnics, the trio is led by the vision of member and main producer Ichigo Rinahamu, whose past work behind idol groups BPM15Q and CY8ER serve as their musical and visual foundation. The music often draws a direct connection to those former acts as they team up with past collaborators like KOTONOHOUSE and TeddyLoid: the latter works in nothing short of the stadium scale in the trio’s arena-rumbling electro anthem “DIVE.” But the three also looks to the future by forging a link with the hyperpop underground, embracing the gaudy electroclash of hirihiri and lilbesh ramko into their sound. Through their growing catalog, Tokyo Den-nou mix the developments in the country’s electronic-pop scene this past decade and change into a rowdy creation that’s wholly their own. —Ryo
Chace
Country: China
Presented by: BMG’s Label Showcase - March 13, 11 p.m. @ Parish
Before he had even put out his debut album in 2022, Chace had become one of China’s most interesting producers. In his sci-fi experiment Endless Farewell with Akini Jing—his biggest credit to date—he crafts the thrilling worlds of an album where each of its nine tracks is imagined as its own universe, supported by its own sound: apocalyptic drum ‘n’ bass, futuristic tech house, ominous glitch pop, and more. His credits are far-reaching, including Akini Jing’s UK-bass-heavy, wuxia-inspired follow-up along with VAVA’s most danceable work, the clubby Vow EP, where Chace’s voice lends a soft, sultry complement to her hedonistic raps.
But Chace isn’t one to be boxed into a sound, not just in dance music. He also serves as a member of trio Mandarin, providing vocals for the band’s unhurried, electronic-tinged indie rock. Conversely, Chace’s solo debut, Belated Suffocation, is filled with melancholic, self-effacing alt-R&B. “I was motivated by isolation,” he croons on the closing title track. When Belated Suffocation does go clubby, it sits outside the venue, the beat softly muffled by shadowy atmosphere—a stark contrast to the floor-filling beats he made on Soundcloud as a teen.
Gearing up for his second album, the producer’s got some of his slickest singles yet. “Keep Me Warm” is gentle, retro-leaning R&B, the singer at his most romantic as he stretches his voice to a soft, luxurious coo. “Tunnel Vision,” meanwhile, proves the singer’s got some bangers left in him: though the track shares the same desolate outlook of his debut, its bright synth melody gives it a gorgeous kick. It’s that sort of faint spark that sits within the best of Chace’s work. —Michael
XAMIYA
Country: Japan
Presented by: Inspired by Tokyo x CEIPA MUSIC WAY PROJECT - March 12, 12:10 a.m. @ Mohawk Indoor; Friends from the East Festival - March 15 @ Elysium
The debut song of XAMIYA sources the best bits from each of the duo’s solo works to fix up a sweet piece of pop punk in a flavor unique to the current hyperpop times. A former supplier of booming trap beats, Xanmei’s been into nu-metal lately, going so far as stringing together a metal-rap anthem running on drum ’n’ bass breaks, done in part with mixture-band Paledusk. KAMIYA meanwhile resides in a more soft-spoken realm of bedroom-pop, though she’s been gradually coming out of her shell to try out some club-ready electroclash. If “”HOTARU” sees the two meeting halfway, their latest drop “Monster” reels the producer closer to his collaborator’s private synth-pop world — though I don’t see the flip side of an industrial-metal makeover for KAMIYA in the vein of, say, Poppy to be out of the question. With a light tweak in the producer’s jock-rock sound, Xanmei makes for a fine companion backing KAMIYA while taking her out of her comfort zone. —Ryo
Andr
Country: Taiwan
Presented by: Taiwan Beats - March 12, 10 p.m. @ Seven Grand
Welcome to the new world of bedroom pop where everything comes up just a little bit Eilish.
Taiwanese artist Andr certainly faces horror with the same smug grin. On the gloomy “Pandemic,” her whispery voice is treated with a provocative lilt while the track drags her into a downward spiral of descending bass lines and threatening bedspring coils. Yet as the song pivots to sublime jazz, she dresses up in the role of the villain with an air of pride—it’s clear she’s enjoying the act.
Andr’s eclectic debut album, shhh, it’s under my bed, references childhood monsters and teenage secrecy while fleshing out the musician’s indie-pop with bright production quirks and smart left turns—even her most lovey-dovey song has a hush-hush tension before she drops a sly “does your boyfriend know?” Her writing is sometimes a touch melodramatic but “Hypnotize” is a clear highlight: Opening with a smattering of breakbeats before Andr rights the panic, her hand rests on the door handle as she teases a world of sophisticated instrumentation and smoother R&B melodies.
miso808
Country: China
Presented by: Friends from the East Festival - March 14, 9 p.m. @ Elysium
Similar Eilish-like vocal stylings apply for the Shanghai-raised, LA-based miso808. Her voice is laced with a familar peril on the synth-pop track “1001” as the singer waxes about a crush: “I’m just afraid that I’m not in your dreams,” she sings in between dancing chimes, “and you’re afraid that you belong to my world.” Where Andr’s shhh, it’s under my bed was suffused with elements of horror, miso808’s debut EP, bedtime stories mp3 collects glimmering indie-pop fables: a princess undergoes self-discovery on ballad “crown,” and two serpents turn the tables on hunters in “misirlou” as miso808 folds quasi-rapped verses and traditional Chinese instruments into the bass-heavy mix. miso808’s love songs are hopeful for heaven, the artist slinging questions of fate and fantasy of angels and perfection. “Every little thing in my memory / becomes nothing special when she’s on my mind,” she hums on “Intuition.” With similar wide-eyed visions, Andr and miso808’s different takes on bedroom pop give way to queer self-discovery. —Michael
Me To Me
Country: Japan
Presented by: Sounds from Japan - March 14, 12 a.m. @ Elysium
Through their exuberant power-pop, Me To Me zero in on the all-or-nothing attitude of youth, where everything carries significant weight to the order of their world no matter how small the win or loss. In their best songs, the band already sound nostalgic for the ephemeral moments that unfold in real time through the span of the track. The three breeze through a highlight reel of a friendship in “Anta No Koto” before they even seem to know for certain they’ll go their separate ways. “What I’m scared of the most / is you quitting the band,” they shout in the chorus. “I wish I can find someone / who I won’t have any regrets if we died together.” These impossibly huge feelings sound sensible when Me To Me sing them over such a sprightly rock tune so fleeting in its rush. —Ryo
Enno Cheng
Country: Taiwan
Presented by: Taiwan Beats - March 12, 11 p.m. @ Seven Grand
Enno Cheng’s most recent album, 2022’s Mercury Retrograde, is both an expansion of her singer-songwriter sound and a document of her experience learning Taiwanese Hokkien. On the stunning opener, “How the Brain Got Language?” she reminds herself that speech isn’t just noise meant to be repeated over and over but syllables strung together for meaning, for connection. The track might feel uncomfortable at first, Cheng’s tongue unfamiliar to her. But as the bassoon and piano melodies broaden, her body begins to move with the sound. For Cheng, new language provides a new toolkit for communication, carrying a new perspective with it. It’s best distilled on the one-off single “us,” where amidst a pool of inwardly collapsing synths and drums, she ponders what language, what voice, what feelings to bear as she forges a relationship.
Mercury Retrograde leans more soulful than its predecessors, occasionally lending gospel-tinged background vocals to the singer’s R&B melodies and producer Chunho’s sumptuous arrangements. But Cheng’s planetary-themed discography has long pulled away from the conventions of the singer-songwriter genre: second album, Pluto, turned to experiments with trip hop and math rock in her self-discovery while follow-up Dear Uranus went for a warmer electronic sound as she broadened to the interpersonal. And Cheng has now begun to tease her fifth album with a concert titled Moon Phases and two new singles, including one with Korean musician Lang Lee: “Turning learned words into weapons / then spending years to forgive ourselves,” Cheng sings in Hokkien, “is it possible to turn learned words / into heartwarming language?” As Lee sings of a shared world, a shared higher being, and love, the two find home in the same melody. With her latest work, Enno Cheng is moving towards connection that transcends language. —Michael
o’summer vacation
Country: Japan
Presented by: Academy Fight Songs - March 13, 9:20 p.m. @ Hotel Vegas Volstead
While it aptly captures the song’s flash of fury in some essence, rage as a title provides almost too much subtext to the primal feelings animating the noise-punk of o’summer vacation. From their slashing bass lines that weaponize unpredictability as much as volume to the nonsensical lyrics hollered by vocalist Ami, the band prioritize visceral instinct with their music — “don’t think, feel” seems the mantra in their explosive jams inspired by the likes of Boredoms and Melt-Banana. If the wiry quick-strike of “Rage” elicits anger, great; if it taps into some other volatile emotion, you’re just as valid to indulge in it. o’summer vacation don’t try to make sense of chaos as much as they let the uncontrollable force flow through them in its most pure, noisy state. —Ryo
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