SCHED* SXSW 2011

event::type Music
Venue: Beauty Bar-Palm Door (401 Sabine St)
Artists: Braids
About: Braids was formed by four best friends in their last year of high school. Convincing one another to skip university, they stayed in the garage all year and practiced obsessively, even while their fingers froze during the cold prairie winters in Calgary, Alberta. Then the band –still in their teens– took the bold step of moving across the country together to Montreal, where they began crafting what would become their debut album Native Speaker. The band’s music reflects an extraordinary, deep-seated maturity originating from time spent playing and growing together in their formative years. With an unusually collaborative dynamic, the bond between the four friends (drummer/vocalist Austin Tufts, guitarist/vocalist Raphaelle Standell-Preston, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Taylor Smith and keyboardist/vocalist Katie Lee) remains as impermeable – and remarkable – as ever.