It’s that time of year again! This week is March Madness for music lovers: South By Southwest. The annual music festival in Austin, Texas is a treasure trove of exciting new music to enjoy and brilliant artists to discover. For this week’s All Songs Considered, our hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are joined by NPR Music’s Stephen Thompson and Saidah Blount to talk about which bands they are most excited to see for the very first time at SXSW this year.

They listened to around 1800 songs by bands performing in the multi-day music spree and whittled the list down to 17 for this week’s show, including the annual “Secret SX Santa” round, where each host gets to take control of one other team member’s schedule and assign a band they have to see while in Austin.

Head over to our SXSW page for NPR Music’s full coverage of this year’s festival. And stay tuned to our social media for updates, announcements and late-night dispatches from Bob, Robin and the All Songs team at SXSW.