Abracadabra, The New Wave of No Wave, On Lifting Spirits At SXSW

Oakland’s Abracadabra on bringing encouragement to SXSW. 

Abracadabra, the Oakland-based unconventional pop duo, is ready to experience all that Austin has to offer at this year’s SXSW Festival — especially the food. Core members Hannah Skelton (vocals, synthesizers) and Chris Niles (bass, synthesizers) create the type of music that makes people want to get up and groove. While en route to Austin, aside from exploring remote gas stations, Abracadabra shared some insight about their sound and what they’re looking forward to. 

District Fray: How would you describe your sound?
Skelton: We make groove-centric left-field pop music that focuses on interplay between the rhythm section rather than being driven by a chord progression. We use varied instrumentation, including but not limited to synthesizers, samples and Latin percussion, to create a unique collage of textures and sounds. Some have described our sound as Tom Tom Club backing Lætitia Sadier while being mixed by King Tubby. We’ve also been called “the new wave of no wave,” and we’d love to think that it’s true!

What do you picture people doing when they listen to your music? How do you want them to feel?
We always hope these grooves will get people moving and dancing, but we also want people to be reminded that we are all together in these strange times, and inspired to make the necessary changes to fix the problems we have with communication in the digital age. Our latest album, “shapes & colors,” has some hard truths in the subject matter, but it’s carefully blended with positivity and encouragement. 

What are you most excited about for this year’s SXSW?
After months of all the behind-the-scenes work, not only prepping for the release of our album but also the logistics of crafting our live set and planning a tour, we’re beyond excited to finally be playing so much music! At this point, we have five shows booked in Austin, and we are really looking forward to playing in front of a new audience everyday. Not to mention the fact that we’re staying put in one location for a week so we can really settle in and take in all that Austin has to offer, specifically the food. We’re also very excited to catch some of the other bands’ sets. This year’s SXSW lineup is stacked.

What inspires you to make music?
The music is a necessary outlet to stay grounded and healthy as we navigate life. More specifically, with “shapes & colors,” these songs were written in the winter of 2020 into 2021 during a Covid shelter-in-place and they were a helpful outlet for processing the massive wealth disparity that we were seeing (and still see) in the Bay Area, the negative effects of capitalism and the communication pitfalls of our current day and age. We also think a big part of why there is so much positivity sprinkled around the album is because things felt so heavy and dark in the world and we really needed the music to lift our spirits and provide encouragement. We really hope the listener can take this away with them too.

Favorite and least favorite parts about being on the road?
I think all of us can agree that we miss sleeping in our beds, but we’re really lucky that the drive from Oakland to Austin is lovely. In particular, we’re looking forward to the drive through New Mexico — there are some really beautiful places to stop along our route. We also really love a gas station or gift shop in the middle of nowhere. No shortage of quirky treasures! Maybe you’ll catch us at SXSW in some gas station camo trucker glasses, who knows.

Abracadabra plays SXSW, Thursday, March 16 at 4 p.m. at Hotel Vegas. To learn more about Abracadabra and their music, follow them on Instagram @abracadabra.band.

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Gem Grimshaw