From Iggy Pop to the Pipettes, it's all at SXSW

AUSTIN, Texas -- Last week, hotel-room key cards doubled as concert schedules. Taxi receipts plugged album releases. Even sidewalks -- a cheap and handy palette for guerrilla marketers with chalk -- were turned into promotional opportunities at the 21st annual South By Southwest music conference and festival, where 1,400 acts from 38 countries played on 65 stages.

SXSW began as a marketplace for new artists, a one-stop talent shop where labels came to snap up (what they hoped would be) the next big thing. Over the years, it's also become a place for companies to trot out buzzed-about new signings for the hordes of media and booking agents -- this year Amy Winehouse, Paolo Nutini, and the Good, the Bad & the Queen all delivered.

Now, even veterans stop in at the festival to jump-start careers: Iggy Pop and the Stooges, who just released their first new album in 34 years; Thomas "She Blinded Me With Science" Dolby, who's back after a 13-year hiatus in Silicon Valley; and Rickie Lee Jones, who recently released her first rock record, were all here in the hopes of luring a new generation of fans to the fold.

But the heart and soul of SXSW has always been the rush of discovery, and this year's event was no exception. Here are some of ours, on the heels of a four-day odyssey in Austin.

The rock trio is making a triumphant return. In a musical moment when bands seem to be ultra-retro or uber-trendy, the Whigs -- a young threesome from Athens, Ga., who just signed to ATO -- owe equally to classic '60s pop and indie-rock. Likewise, Scottish trio the Fratellis keep T-Rex, punk, and the blues in their hearts while wearing cynicism and modern hooks on their sleeves, and for that they were anointed; Pete Townshend (the keynote speaker at SXSW) joined them onstage for a pair of tunes, including the Who's "Seeker."

Already a hit back home in the United Kingdom, the Young Knives (who play Wednesday night at Harpers Ferry) are indeed sharp. Two brothers and a school chum mine the minutiae of everyday life for clever songs that draw from alt-rock squalling as well as observational Brit forebears Ray Davies and XTC's Andy Partridge.

Field Music, from Sunderland, England, made some of the most subtly provocative rock at the festival: Its complex musical math combined ebullient melodies with art-school precision and heavy emotion. Spillover crowds who couldn't get into the packed outdoor venue pressed against the fences to soak up the sophisticated pop.

A new wave of intriguing hybrid groups cropped up this year -- bands that mix not just musical styles but instrumental arrangements in the unlikeliest ways. Dance-rock band Shout Out Out Out Out, from Edmonton, Alberta, went wild with vocoders and synthesizers but didn't skimp on the maracas and cowbells, either, coming up with a classic rock/vintage disco mashup.

Creature, from Montreal, was just as inventive and ecstatic. The two-gal, two-guy combo also favored cowbell -- one of the girls is dubbed Cowbella -- but put it in service of old school rapping, day-glo melodies, punk energy, and danceable tomfoolery. It was like the B-52's jamming with the Sugarhill Gang

Architecture in Helsinki, a quirky-jammy-electro-symphonic octet from Australia, saw fit to layer samplers and congas, hollering and funk bass, folk-pop, and Krautrock.

By contrast, some acts sparkled by proving astute pupils of their chosen genre's bedrock principles. The outsized pair of Texas siblings who rock the mike in Verbal Seed have drunk deep from the well of hip-hop history. Two turntables -- pumping out seductive soul and funk samples -- and mellifluous rhymes were all the Waco-spawned duo of Oneself Salaam and Tree (a third non-performing brother, Focus, helps with the lyrics) needed to whip up the crowd.

The Last Vegas was pure, good-time hard rock, free of irony and heavy intellectual lifting. Blessed with a singer whose bloozy stylings were pitched somewhere between the constricted bark of Brian Johnson and the high whine of Vince Neil -- as well as a menacing wall of riffage and tunes about chicks and rocking out and drinking and stuff -- the Chicago quintet was a good, dumb, sleazy time.

A clutch of young modern rockers are breaking free of their generation's new wave/post-punk shackles. Expanding the familiar angular guitars and sleek rhythms into a more explosive and complicated vibe, Brooklyn's Foreign Islands looked like a kinetic sculpture and sounded, for all its club-friendly precision, like a band on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And neo-psychedelic freak-out sextet the Black Angels, playing to a huge crowd in its hometown, veered from hypnotic to jarring. Singer Alex Maas has a piercing, almost operatic style that floats on top of the band's sprawling mix of '60s mysticism, '70s minimalism, and modern majesty.

The singer-songwriter genre isn't the sexiest at SXSW, but a handful of singular showcases showed that bright new voices are emerging, especially overseas. A chance stop at a far-flung lounge provided one of those indelible SXSW moments: Stockholm-based chanteuse Ane Brun, fellow Swede Tobias Froberg, and Teitur, from the Faroe Islands, sang Froberg's "God's Highway" in brash, bold three-part harmony, like some kind of post-punk Peter, Paul and Mary. Brun's bluesy, cinematic solo set, which followed, was riveting.

If you loved Jeff Buckley but have been thus far unimpressed with the hordes of boys with honeyed falsettos and aching lyrics trying to fill the void, then Norway's the place to seek solace. Thomas Dybdahl has both in spades plus cheek and modernity. He wowed a silent crowd in the expansive Central Presbyterian Church -- a great new venue for the festival -- with his nuanced phrasing and romantic notions.

Poor James Morrison, who just released his US debut this week, had to contend with massive technical difficulties and a nearly indifferent crowd. But the soul-popster charmed the few listening in cavernous La Zona Rosa -- most were waiting for It Girl Winehouse, who did not disappoint -- with an acoustic guitar and his seductively raspy voice, sounding a bit like Ray LaMontagne.

Two of our favorite bands at the festival anchored the extremes of female-centric sounds. The Pipettes, a trio of young women from the UK, evoked '60s girl groups (choreographed moves, polka dot dresses, effervescent harmonies) through a modern lo-fi lens (they were backed by a sallow, minimalist rhythm section). And the Cliks, a foursome out of Toronto, rocked with primal, stylish ferocity reminiscent of the early Pretenders.

In addition to the music, the Austin Convention Center housed a trade show, art exhibit, and 70 panel discussions on topics of both creative and business interests including touring, promotion, and the digital frontier. There were also wide-ranging interviews with seminal artists such as Townshend, Gilberto Gil, and Emmylou Harris.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, musician Scott Matthews was misidentified as James Morrison in a story about the South by Southwest music festival in Monday's Living/Arts section.

Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com. Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com. For more on music visit boston.com/ae/music/blog.