Following in the footsteps of previous years' next big things, Norah Jones, The Darkness and Franz Ferdinand, the great discovery at this year's South by Southwest music jamboreee in Austin, Texas, is The Go! Team. They're a bright new Brighton band that has no intention of producing the next big anthem for sad indie kids, writes Jim Carroll

There is always one band that gets everyone talking at South by Southwest. Hundreds of acts go to the annual festival in Austin, Texas to show off their wares and advance their careers. Yet, inevitably, out of all the acts who come from every corner of the globe to gorge themselves on Mexican barbecue, there's always one who stands out a mile, one to get audiences and industry bullshitters alike chattering all the way down Sixth Street.

In previous years, people were buzzing over the performance of Norah Jones in an Indian restaurant, the cod-rock antics of The Darkness or the frantic Franz Ferdinand take on the Sound of Young Scotland.

Judging by the reports from SXSW 2005, the loudest buzz surrounded Brighton's The Go! Team. They were the one band from 1,344 performing in Austin that everyone there will claim to have seen. The Team played a few shows over the course of the festival, attracted queues which stretched for many city blocks and had Elijah Woods and friends going mental in front of the stage. By the time they left town, the A&R frenzy around the band was at a peak. Everyone, it seems, wants a chunk of this buzz band.

Not that band leader Ian Parton could tell you much about it. "I'm kind of shielded from the reaction and that side of things," he says. "We're not really aware of all the hype or what people are saying. We don't pay it much attention, we just get on with the show."

But Parton can remember the queues of people trying to get in to the venues for their shows, and how weird it seemed. "I mean, I don't have a clue how people had heard about us over there because the album hasn't been released in the US. It's purely down to the Internet and word of mouth. We haven't done a thing, we haven't masterminded it, it just happened."

When you see The Go! Team live, you can instantly understand the fuss. While their Thunder, Lightning, Strike debut album was one of 2004's hidden delights, it's when the band bounce onstage that their musical hopscotch from northern soul to dusty hip-hop grooves to noisy indie guitars begins to make perfect sense.

At the Eurosonic festival in Holland in January, the six-strong Team produced the most exhilarating musical pandemonium of the entire weekend. Two female drummers thumped away, guitars cut melodies to ribbon, beats slammed into the floor and the Team's secret weapon did her thing. With Ninja, you don't just get a very fine, gobby rapper-vocalist; you get a one-woman cheerleader squad who has crowds chanting and waving their arms in the air like they just don't care. If you want buckets of enthusiasm and energy, you've come to the right place.

When the story began, Parton had no idea it would come this far. A drummer in a succession of bands who just wanted to sound like Sonic Youth, Parton always had a sound in his head he could never quite get on tape.

"What I wanted was the sound you hear when you think of De La Soul's Three Feet High & Rising. You imagine them in brash technicolour. I wanted people who were listening to our album to picture all these colourful images and scenes, like a block party going off in a big city like New York or London. I suppose I was drawing on all my favourite sounds and referencing all my favourite things, like '60s girl groups, Bollywood soundtracks, Sonic Youth or Charlie Brown cartoon music."

So Parton went to his bedroom in Brighton with a four-track recorder and a big box of tapes. "I went through the tapes grabbing bits and pieces from ideas and bits of music I'd stored over the years. I went through all these old tapes and took ideas for choruses and samples and slammed them all together to see what worked. It took months and months.

"Then I took it all off to a proper studio - well, a studio that wasn't my bedroom - and we laid instruments on top. I really wanted a sound which was quite trashy and wild. We didn't want the kind of coffee-table production which so many albums have nowadays; we wanted something which was exciting."

The finished album is certainly that. A whirlwind of infectious sounds and grooves, it does sound at times like the best compilation tape in the world ever, as it scans from Mike Post-style cop show soundtracks and freaky rock-outs to cuts for double-dutch jumprope girls without pausing for breath. When you hear you'll wonder how the hell a band could perform this live.

It's something which also worried Parton at the start. "Early on, I really doubted if we could do The Go! Team live. It was 'how the fuck will we do this?'. Now, though, it's become more about the live show because all our different musical tastes and experiences are beginning to show.

"We're people who wouldn't normally be in a band together. Ninja is a full-on hip-hop chick, while me and Sam are scrawny noise kids. This is where it starts to get really interesting for me."

When the band play now, Parton knows they're doing the right thing. Their audience is a right royal mix of ages and styles, but they all dance.

"People always assume that audiences will not dance, especially indie kids, that they're the ones who will just stand there and gape. But they don't do that at our gigs. I think we draw a crowd who were into dance music and still are, but can't find any dance music to get excited about. We pick up these people and they like what we do.

"The goal of our music is to be kind of experimental and new while getting people to dance at the same time. It's music to get down to. I love that combination. It sounds new yet you can shake your ass to it as well."

So much current indie/alt music is just as dull as it's possible to get. If you want music which comes out of nowhere to knock you for six, you won't get that from the market leaders. And if you're looking for The Go! Team to come up with a tune like Coldplay or Keane, you're looking at the wrong band.

"Over the last few years, there's been a real power-ballad craze. Bands seem to think that they have to have a Yellow like Coldplay or a Somewhere Only We Know like Keane to make an impact. Bands know that if they have one of those songs that it will set them up for life, but they're just songs for a slow set for sad indie kids. Personally, I was so bored with that scene that I wanted to move as far away from those chin-stroking types as possible and make some action themes.

"I'm a fusspot with music and I would never be content with The Go! Team being just another guitar band. We need something more exciting and it's great to see that lots and lots of other people think the same way."

In fact, so many people think so that Parton thinks it may be time to quit his day-job (making documentaries for US cable TV). From here on in, it's all about the music. Punters going to any of their Irish shows this weekend should strap themselves in.

The Go! Team play Cyprus Avenue, Cork tonight; The Village, Dublin tomorrow; and Spring & Airbrake, Belfast on Sunday