My role at the Hype Hotel in SXSW sounded relatively simple: make sure the bands turn up, get on stage, and get off again.

In practice, this task was rather like herding cats whilst trying to nail jelly to a wall: complicated and with a lingering, vague sense of futility.

By the fifth day of it all, I had begun to wholly appreciate the beauty of simplicity. Some bands turned up at the stage door with two vans full of kit – one (unnamed) band had eleven (11) synthesisers, an act which usually coincided with the distinct feeling of my heart sinking into my boots.

Others, like Mmoths, strolled up to the stage door a distinctly un-rock-‘n’-roll hour early, with all of his gear in an anonymous black rucksack. It took all of my self-restraint to refrain from hugging him.

Interestingly, it was these artists (like yesterday’s Mujuice), with their world in their satchel, who generally made the most intriguing music.

Mmoths’ was sweet, lilting, enveloping; the crowd grew out of curiosity, arriving for the beats and staying for the woozy warmth. Heart displays the best of Mmoths’ charms: gentle, calm and comforting – but distinct and generously complicated at the same time.

When he finished, he packed up his laptop and pads into his bag, exchanged pleasantries with me and wandered off to sample the multifarious delights of SXSW; everything he needed on his back. The joys.

MORE: soundcloud.com/mmoths