NXNW

For those of us stuck in Arizona during South by Southwest, the only solace is the number of great bands making pit stops in the PHX on their back-and-forth routes to Austin. Portland’s Parenthetical Girls – whose former members went on to form the groups Xiu Xiu and Dead Science – is one such band that is actually connected to the Valley via its drummer, former Phoenician Eddy Crichton. The slender, androgynously attractive, cheekbone-intensive multi-instrumentalists play a kickass brand of melodramatic and slightly fragmented pop.

Also en route in reverse is Vancouver’s indie experimental-pop group No Kids, which sounds a bit like Of Montreal, except its members are actually Canadian. Regardless, No Kids scores well with fans of the Elephant 6 collective.