His music really transported me back to the nights and days of endless parties in my hometown, Buenos Aires. Back then I was a teenager completely outraged by the 4 a.m. curfew my very strict parents imposed on me (nightclubs don’t even get started until 2 a.m. back home).

My most bizarre New Year’s memory took place in Buenos Aires. My friend had a party — one of those memorable celebrations where the whole neighborhood shows up, plus their cousins from other neighborhoods, and at some point the house looks like a crowded Where’s Waldo? illustration.

By 7 a.m. it started winding down and people went to sleep wherever they could find a spot, but my best friend Gabi and I had this romantic idea to grab breakfast by the river. As we started walking toward the port, we accidentally found ourselves in the middle of a street fight between two very drunk teenage crews. Scared, we ran into an old garage and hid until the police showed up.

As I peeked through the garage door cracks and saw the enraged kids beating one guy with sticks, I had a passing feeling this was going to be the year in which things changed, and whether that was for better or worse, it had to happen and couldn’t be stopped even if I wanted it to. Even in my adolescent melodrama, there was a grain of truth — by the end of the year, that kind of fighting had become common and I’d packed my bags and left.

But that moment was pure teenage adrenaline. This was love. This was the time in life when everything is the first time. It was the time of waking up covered in glitter — and desperately scrubbing it off so your parents thought you’d actually been with your study group. This was thumping, bumping music all the time.

Gabi and I sneaked out of the garage, looked at each other, laughed and said something I’ve come to realize many years later and wish I could say more often, something this week’s show feels like: Let’s just go home.

P.S.: Mami, if you’re reading this, sorry I snuck out.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

From established artists like Beck, St. Vincent and Weezer to new acts like FKA Twigs, Sturgill Simpson, Sylvan Esso and Luluc, 2014’s releases were varied and surprising. Some, like the beautiful albums by Beck and Luluc, made an impression while keeping the volume low; others, including the sophomore album from the hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, made a noise that was impossible to turn down once it arrived like a buzzsaw in October. And then there are the pop juggernauts who bookended the year: Beyoncé, whose self-titled album came out late in 2013 but echoed through most of this year, and Taylor Swift, who wiped the floor (sales-wise, at least) with every other album released in 2014.

This is just the beginning of our year-end extravaganza. Next week NPR Music will share lists of our favorite albums and favorite songs, as well as individual lists from Bob, Robin, Stephen and Ann.

What defined your year in music? Let us know in our comment section below and vote for your favorite albums of the year in our listener poll.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

All three members of the group have put out music over the last decade (and stayed friends — they really do watch episodes of Portlandia in each others’ basements), but there’s something special about the combination of these three women on stage or in the studio. We’ve got plenty of proof of that here. When they joined All Songs Considered hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton to listen to songs from the new record and talk about how it was made, the topic of chemistry came up again and again. “Part of this whole Sleater-Kinney 2.0 is breaking the rules,” Corin Tucker says. “We wanted to tell our story … we feel like we need to stand up for ourselves.”

Quotes from that conversation are below. You can hear the entire thing, along with clips from three songs from No Cities To Love, at the audio link on this page (Audio will be available shortly).

On deciding to get back together:

BOB BOILEN: I’m just wondering: who called who?

CORIN TUCKER: Actually, Carrie was at my house. We were hanging out, and I think we were watching Portlandia episodes that they were working on. And Fred [Armisen] was there, too. We were talking about playing music … and I said, …’I wonder if we’re ever gonna do a Sleater-Kinney show again.’

CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: I think we had two people in the room who are known fans of the band. One is Corin’s husband, Lance Bangs, and the other is Fred Armisen, who was a fan of the band long before he and I worked together… they were very encouraging, and I think just wouldn’t let that conversation die…It was something that began percolating then. We talked to Janet and, you know, the conversation started.

On the early stages of the songwriting process:

CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: We wrote in my basement. It took on many permutations, and eventually we settled on a process that was a little more akin to what we had done in the early years, partially because Corin and I had to kind of reacquaint ourselves to the very specific vernacular that she and I speak, musically. And so, [she] and I would work on songs and then bring them to Janet, instead of jamming … It’s almost telepathic. I think that Corin and I can complete each other’s musical sentences in a way that never ceases to surprise me.

On the lyrics to the album’s first single, “Bury Our Friends”:

CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: There’s the line, “Only I get to be sickened by me,” or “Only I get to be punished by me.” A lot of this song was… trying to posit yourself — your body or your mind — into a space that is… assured, and safe, and sort of rejecting criticism and…having to figure out how to make sense of potential insignificance or irrelevance. It’s just a lot about reclamation, I think.

ROBIN HILTON: A song you think you could have written fifteen years ago, or twenty years ago, when the band was starting out? Or one that could only happen now?

CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: Both, I think. I mean, lyrically, I feel like sometimes I’ve been writing the same song since I wrote the song ‘You Annoy Me’ when I was 16. But I think more in the second verse, I’m singing about seeking out fragments of stillness, and trying to make sense of power and struggle — not just as this propulsion where you’re pushing against something, which is less combative and more about a solidity, like an inner kind of wholeness, that I think… I would not have sang about when I was 19.

On aging and its effect on the band’s sound:

BOB BOILEN: I mean, a lot of the drive in the music comes off as aggression, comes out as frustration. So much of rock music has to do with… this pent up energy , this pent up emotion — like, pissed at the world, pissed at the way people treat you — all that stuff. And that happens when you’re younger, and that comes out as the force of guitars and drums. What is the driving force? How does the message connect to the energy of the song?

JANET WEISS: I feel like, with the three of us, with the way we connect, there’s a desperation to reach a certain level…a desperation to break through of the mundane, of the generic. We’re trying to push through, so desperately, to something bigger, that it just sort of comes out in this really powerful, forward-moving way. But I don’t think that’s changed. I think…we just…don’t write a lot of slow songs –there’s a lot of…unbridled energy….I guess as far as young versus old, I don’t really feel like I’ve said it all, and I’m comfortable, and I’m sort of ready to kick my feet up. I feel like there’s a lot left to do… and if we’re gonna do this, the three of us, let’s make it off the charts.

On listening to Sleater-Kinney’s older albums before releasing the box set, Start Together:

CORIN TUCKER: There’s definitely a couple grimaces on the first record, like ‘what?’ But also, just a feeling of compassion for the journey that we took. We started the band so young, and everything that we wrote about, all the different parts of our lives, and all the different characters that we drew, I think they’re really kind of special, and they obviously touched people really deeply.

On being women in the music industry:

ROBIN HILTON: Politics have changed over the last twenty years. You wrote so much about how hard it was to be a woman, making this kind of music in particular, being in such a male-dominated field…I’m wondering if you feel like much has changed since then. If it’s gotten any better.

CORIN TUCKER: I think it has gotten better. Our society has become more progressive in talking about women’s issues and safety and I think Obama just really stepped up recently and spoke about talking to survivors of sexual assault, and saying, you know, we’ve got your back. We need to do something about this. I mean, that’s a really big deal. That’s something no president has ever done, and, you know, for someone that’s in charge of our country to say, “This is important and we need to work on this, and keep working together,” that’s a huge step forward.

ROBIN HILTON: I think, this year, I think the best rock records of this year are from women. I think of the St. Vincent record, or the Angel Olsen record. I feel like it’s an area that [women] own this year.

JANET WEISS: I still think if you looked at the headliners of festivals, though — the people that play after dark, I like to say — it’s hard to be a woman. You will see it’s very male-dominated, still. I mean, there’s just still not a lot of women in those top slots, even though they have earned it completely. It’s not like things are really that different, even though some of the best work is being made by women.

On feeling like an outsider:

CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: I think in all of the creative pursuits I have, I feel like it’s an exploration of otherness and feeling like an outsider and creating work that’s strange and unusual that goes along the periphery for people to find if they need it. I think that’s how I go through life — kind of in an outside lane, sort of observing. Observing what’s happening in the center. And, so, I think a lot of these songs have to do with an inchoate, almost shapelessness. And I think that’s why a lot of the titles have words like “surface,” and “cities,” these things that are logistically, technically concrete, but actually are so much more murky in reality. And trying to make sense of what that stability is, and what it means to feel other when there’s so much in the middle that it keeps you not just on the outside, but wanting to be on the outside.

On whether the band has evolved and been influenced by other music:

CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: Well, I really think Sleater-Kinney is a singular band with no clear predecessor or successor, so I don’t think we started out creating music that you could see the palette of colors that we were using, and maybe draw a lineage. But certainly there wasn’t a distinct band that we were pulling from, and I think subsequently, there haven’t been bands that sounds like us. So I don’t really know how we would’ve come back together and done anything other than be ourselves.

I do think that I like pop music, and I think a lot about melody — but that doesn’t even mean Top 40 music, necessarily, it’s just, in the years of listening to music, and what I’ve decided to discard, and literally throw out, it tends to be music that just doesn’t have good songwriting, or good melody. Like, that’s just what I come back to over and over again: a great chorus, or a great hook. It doesn’t have to be saccharine, it doesn’t have to be cheap. I think that, to me, has a forcefulness to it, and I do think that this record focuses on choruses in a way that some of our earlier records didn’t. Although I can hear it come in on an album like All Hands on the Bad One, I can hear the poppier elements start to come out on that record. There’s just such a singular aspect to this band. We’re not porous, we’re not letting a lot of outside things in. And when we do, the way that it’s interpreted within the three of us, what comes out doesn’t sound anything like what we brought in.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Bob shares music by a New Zealand-based band called Tiny Ruins. That song’s airy vocals and restrained instrumentation pair well with a pick from Robin: Dylan Shearer, who channels the folky, quiet side of Pink Floyd on a song called “Meadow Mines (Fort Polio).”

Also on the program: The strangely alluring electronica of London’s Metronomy; and Robin mourns the loss his beloved Jayhawks suffered over the weekend in the NCAA basketball tournament with the soothing sounds of A Winged Victory For The Sullen.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Whatever it was, as the final night of SXSW drew to a close, any attempts by our All Songs Considered hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton to hide their exhaustion and loopiness were unsuccessful. In one club, Robin heard music from 20 years in the future (played by a band called Marijuana Deathsquads). On the dirty floor of another venue, Bob Boilen found a bracelet inscribed with the word “Dream” that convinced him he’s just a brain in a jar being injected with chemicals to make him happy. Take heart Bob, a fellow traveler had the same idea.

Thankfully, NPR Music’s Stephen Thompson and Frannie Kelley helped to keep things tethered to reality, maybe because they finally got to see performers they’d been pursuing all week. Stephen caught a breezy, 12-song, 13 minute set by Tony Molina and Frannie saw Louisiana rapper Kevin Gates, whose energy and aggression were palpable. Robin caught his SXSW white whale in Ages and Ages, who he’s been trying to see without success since the 2011 festival.

Bob caught up with Kishi Bashi and The Kite String Tangle, but his moment of revelation was the U.K. group Melt Yourself Down. One night after seeing the saxophone and drum trio Moon Hooch, this was a group with a similar setup plus a singer, and the effect was “Moon Hooch times ten.” We’re not sure we trust Bob’s brain-in-a-jar to do that kind of high-level math, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

You can hear that whole conversation in the audio player on this page, and read highlights from our staff in Austin below. Listen to our discoveries in a playlist of music by the best bands we heard at SXSW 2014 at the bottom of this page. And you can find a lot more of our SXSW coverage on Twitter, (@nprmusic), Instagram and Facebook.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Among the All Songs Considered crew — Bob Boilen, Robin Hilton, Stephen Thompson and returning guest Katie Presley — the day was won by Moon Hooch, a Brooklyn-based instrumental trio of two saxophonists and a drummer who got a deeply invested crowd dancing in unison.

Stephen gave a portion of his schedule over to recommendations from colleagues — Moon Hooch and the Front Bottoms courtesy of Bob and Denitia and Sene and Lowell as picked by Katie Presley. He also ducked out of the mob on 6th Street to see The Pack A.D., a ferociously loud duo whose set felt “controlled and calm” compared to the cacophany of the crowd outside. Katie had a string of good luck, making it in to see seven straight bands she wanted to see, when and where she wanted to see them, a near-impossible feat at the ever-more crowded SXSW. Then, because the laws of SXSW require balance, she got shut out of six shows in a row.

Bob’s non-Moon Hooch highlight came out of a trip to the Austin Convention Center, a “soulless” venue that he usually tries to avoid. But the Norwegian band Highasakite, which blends pop and chant, made endearing music that was atmospheric and catchy enough to overcome the site’s limitations. Robin saw Perfect Pussy once again — “I’m just absolutely smitten” — and Kishi Bashi, who played new songs with a full band, including electrified banjo, to a packed house.

You can hear that whole conversation in the audio player on this page, and read highlights from our staff in Austin below. Listen to our discoveries in a running playlist of music by the best bands we’ve heard so far, at the bottom of this page. We’ll have more updates throughout the day: You can follow along with all our SXSW coverage in real time via Twitter (@nprmusic), Instagram and Facebook.

Friday SXSW Highlights

• Robin Hilton (@nprobin): The highlight of the entire week didn’t come until a little after one in the morning last night, when the Brooklyn band Moon Hooch erupted on a modest stage accessible only through a smelly back alley. Two guys on saxophones and one killer drummer. They basically play riff rock, taking wildly infectious, groove-heavy lines, repeating them and building on them. So much drama. And so tightly synched it sort of boggled my mind. And they had a large crowd of fans out-of-control dancing for joy like I haven’t seen in many years. Moon Hooch. Seriously, go see them. You won’t believe it.
• Stephen Thompson (@idislikestephen): At some point on Day 4 of SXSW, you’re likely to hit a wall; to want to climb into bed in the hopes that you’ll never again encounter another noise or human being. I hit that wall a couple times on Friday, and found a way through it thanks to big, soul-stirring rackets. Seeing The Front Bottoms perform the anthemic “Twin Size Mattress” — with the crowd screaming virtually every word in unison — gave the evening its first perfect moment. The two women in Pack A.D. bashed out a raucous blast of room-filling noise that still conveyed more calm than the chaos in the street outside. And then the mighty Moon Hooch, with its drums and two saxophones, closed out the night with a wonderfully cacophonous set; the crowd was a throbbing organism throughout. Bring on Day 5.
• Kiana Fitzgerald (@NPRandB): I got my entire life at Solange’s Saint Heron showcase last night, which featured artists from the debut compilation album from her record label. From the colorful venue set-up (pinatas and Christmas lights) against a back drop of a towering stone formation, to the welcoming relaxed environment, the entire showcase was an experience to behold. I have to admit, my favorite moments of the night came in irrepressible spurts of fan-girling. Myself and a small group of long-time supporters of the effervescent Iman Omari wound up singing his songs back to him at the tops of our lungs. I fell in love with a duo, BC Kingdom, whose hip-hop influenced production and unabashed approach to subjects around the outskirts of love threw me back to the days of R. Kelly and Jodeci supremacy. Tweet, the last performer of the night, was light years ahead of her time a decade ago, stylistically. It felt like last night was the moment that all of the pieces locked together and I understood how important her influence was on the sound of current artists like Solange and Kelela.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Of course, it wasn’t just another day. We walked Austin’s streets, found ourselves in familiar venues, ate some tacos and saw plenty of excellent bands, but the day built slowly. By the end of the night, when Bob, Robin Hilton and Stephen Thompson met up to talk about getting back into the SXSW swing, the focus was back on the music. Nearly everyone had moments where the music coming from Austin’s stages echoed emotions they were feeling or provided some relief from those feelings. Bob found some catharsis in the big, emotional rock of Portland’s Typhoon. Robin started his day with a reflective set by The Autumn Defense. Stephen saw wildly different bands back-to-back, moving from lovely guitar/cello/voice combination at Aisha Burns’ set to a short blast of New Orleans Bounce from Big Freedia, then following that up with a set from longtime favorite Haley Bonar at the Central Presbyterian Church.

All three ended up at a set by Future Islands to end the night. The Baltimore band has been making slightly off-kilter dance rock for nearly a decade, but they’ve recently risen to Internet-meme status thanks to a typically bravura performance on The Late Show With David Letterman. “I thought the show was kind of defiant, almost,” Robin said. You could make an entire slide solely out of photos of that band’s lead singer/dancer Samuel Herring, or you could just keep pressing play on this slo-mo video of Herring getting into his own band’s groove forever.

You can listen to the whole conversation at the audio player on this page and read more highlights from Thursday in Austin below. Follow along with our discoveries in a running playlist of music by the best bands we’ve heard so far, at the bottom of this page.

Today’s schedule has a strong start. At 11 a.m. Central, we’ll be presenting live streaming video of this year’s SXSW keynote address by Lady Gaga. Watch it here. We’ll have more updates throughout the day — you can follow along in real time via Twitter (@nprmusic), Instagram and Facebook.

Thursday SXSW Highlights

• Ann Powers (@annkpowers): “The Houston band Wild Moccasins began its showcase set with a moment of silence for the victims of last night’s terrible accident. After the unique experience of standing in a club crowd in total silence for a full minute, the group’s New Wave ecstasies were all the more intense and liberating. Zahira Gutierrez danced and sang as if governed by jolts of electricity, bouncing off the angular grooves her bandmates generated. Pure pleasure on a somber day.”
• Robin Hilton (@nprobin): “Seattle pianist and singer Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius blindsided me during his late-night set at St. David’s Episcopal church when he sang the sweetly somber song “Lookout, Lookout” from his 2010 debut, Learning. With the previous night’s tragedy hanging over the day, it sparked an unexpected emotional release in me. A beautiful, tear-filled moment of reflection.”
• Bob Boilen (@allsongs): “I loved the songs and the spaciousness of Leif Vollebekk. He had a way with phrasing that was somewhere between Van Morrison and Andrew Bird or Patrick Watson. Poignant, poetic, soulful and thoughtful.”
• Felix Contreras (@felixatjazz): “Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux‘s short but incendiary set featured some tracks from her new album (see this week’s First Listen) as well as some crowd favorites from her earlier albums. The crowd treated her like a returning hero.”
• Kiana Fitzgerald (@NPRandB): “I finally caught up with one of my favorite up-and-coming hip-hop artists, Denzel Curry. It was short, but so sweet and impactful. His energy was sky high. I found out right before the show that he was heading back to his home state, Florida, ASAP for the funeral of his brother, who was murdered last week. You’d have never known by his set.”

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

At about 12:30 a.m., two people were killed and 23 others injured after a suspected drunken driver, now in police custody, drove a car through barricades on Red River Street and struck pedestrians near The Mohawk. You can read more about the incident at NPR News and at KUT, NPR’s member station in Austin, which is updating the story as it develops.

It’s difficult to turn back to music after hearing about awful news like this. You can hear a little bit about how the whole night felt to the All Songs Considered team by listening to the podcast in the audio player on this page. As our own Ann Powers puts it, “In the midst of this joy, you never know what’s going to happen, and that’s why the joy is all that more precious.”

We’ll have more coverage from SXSW all week on NPR Music.

Update: The Austin Police Department held a press conference at 10:30 a.m. CT to review the condition of those injured in the incident and give an update on the progress of the investigation. SXSW managing director Roland Swenson spoke during the press conference and said that organizers would like to go home to recover from the shock of the event, but that the festival feels “some obligation to the people who have traveled here from around the world” to continue events as scheduled.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

On Tuesday, we DJ’d a party at SXAmericas, the festival’s Latin music and technology offshoot. We heard Neil Young talk about Pono, his newly unveiled high quality audio player. We ate some pizza. We barely made it into Chance The Rapper’s only SXSW appearance, at the City of Chicago’s official SXSW showcase. We Ubered a pedicab. And yeah, we saw dozens of bands.

The night ended with All Songs hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton, NPR Music’s Stephen Thompson and guest Katie Presley gathering around a microphone to talk about the bands they saw on day one. Bob enjoyed Charli XCX and Cymbals. Stephen loved Jambinai’s Godspeed-style instrumental rock. Everybody who saw Royal Teeth loved them. (“Just as joyful and wonderful as I thought it would be.” –Robin; “A confetti gun of joy with very well-done hair.” –Katie; “I got the sense that that band is about to become really, really massive.” –Stephen)

You can listen to that conversation on this page, see photos of bands from all over Austin and read about highlights below. Follow along with our discoveries in a running playlist of music by the best bands we’ve heard so far, at the bottom of this page.

We’re just getting started. Tonight we’ll be streaming the official NPR Music SXSW showcase, featuring Damon Albarn, St. Vincent, Kelis, Eagulls and Perfect Pussy, live from Austin. That starts at 7:00 p.m. Central time.

Follow along with everything in real time via Twitter (@nprmusic), Instagram and Facebook.

Tuesday SXSW Highlights

• Bob Boilen (@allsongs): “Agnes Obel who, at the Central Presbyterian Church, set her crystal voice against beautiful arrangements of cello, violin and keyboard.”
• Ann Powers (@annkpowers): “Parker Millsap is a 20 year old from Oklahoma gaining a following in the Americana community. I really like his new album, but I wasn’t prepared for the wild, vast power of his voice and his remarkable charisma. This guy can yodel, he can sing a soul song for real, he can preach and he wiggles his leg like Elvis. Also, he looks like Leo DiCaprio in Titanic. A star in the making.”
• Robin Hilton (@nprobin): “The band Pins, four women from England, played at the Presbyterian Church, a space that could not contain them. Super fierce. Powerful drummer. They tore it up … sort of brash, surfer garage punk rock. Hardly anyone there. They needed a mosh pit.”
• Jasmine Garsd (@JasGarsd): “I checked out the Latin hip-hop showcase, including Puerto Rican rapper Alvaro Diaz and Brazilian Emicida. Diaz is one of the most talented live rappers I’ve seen in years and a counter movement to the mindful rappers of Latin America. Hip-hop has traditionally played the role of Latin America’s musical conscience — acts like Calle 13, Ana Tijoux and Mala Rdriguez. Alvaro Diaz is not that. He’s the little devil on your other shoulder. Emicida artfully combines traditional Brazilian instruments like the berimbau and the sounds of samba and batucada with hip-hop beats. As an added bonus, he was hilarious.”
• Felix Contreras (@felixatjazz): “A lovely plate of Mexican food, meeting Alt.Latino fans and seeing the Mexico City rock band Division Miniscula.”
• Katie Presley (@loveismaroon): “When people say ‘Keep Austin Weird,’ they mean, ‘Keep Austin like the crowd at Those Howlings.'”

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

It’s the snow-day edition of our show. With the District buried under a late-season blanket of ice and frigid air, hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton were stuck at their respective apartments, left to record the show in their home studios. But Bob warms things up at the top of the program with “Gouge,” a breezy sounding cut from the appropriately named group Eternal Summers. Robin follows with Slow Club, a group from Sheffield, England that makes equally warm, joyful sounds on a brand new cut called “Tears Of Joy.”

Also on the show: Sharon Van Etten‘s latest album, Are We There? isn’t out until the end of May, but we’ve got an early glimpse of it with the song “Taking Chances”; And after years of playing in Blur, Gorillaz, The Good The Band And The Queen (and many other projects), Damon Albarn returns with his first-ever solo record, called Everyday Robots. Plus, the disarmingly sweet sounds of Death Vessel; and Beach House take strange recordings made in space and turn them into music for a compilation called Space Project.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.