NEW YORK — Nasty weather didn’t deter attendees on the penultimate night of the 2009 CMJ Music Marathon, as hundreds of fans braved the cold and rain to bring venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn to their capacity.

At the Music Hall of Williamsburg, The xx cemented their reputation as one of the festival’s most anticipated bands, drawing enough of a crowd that the club began turning badge holders away at 10 p.m. Despite having played several sets already this week, with more scheduled, the London quartet showed no sign of weariness. It’s possible they were feeding off the energy of the audience, which turned the group’s dreamy, ethereal songs into feverish singalongs. Co-ed vocalists Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft complemented each other well, with Croft’s voice in particular floating from the speakers like smooth velvet.

Around the corner at Spike Hill, Siri Walberg (a.k.a. Sissy Wish) took the stage clad in skinny jeans, yellow sneakers and a homemade vest laden with cassette tapes. The quirky Norwegian’s herky-jerky dance moves and broken English was awkward yet endearing, and the enthusiastic crowd lapped it up.

The waifish Norwegian, not an outsize presence physically, allowed her music to take up most of the space on stage. Her touring bandmate, Bjare Hundvin, armed with a laptop and keyboards, created a swirling soundscape of synthesizers and floor-rattling drumbeats. Some of the darker, more industrial-sounding tunes, particularly “About a Machine,” resemble what Depeche Mode would probably sound like if Dave Gahan had a sex change.

As the marathon draws to a close tomorrow, check back with Blast for coverage of Saturday’s best performances, including Michael Jackson and Metallica tribute bands, as well as a roundup of the festival as a whole.

Blast correspondent Sarah Be contributed to this report and provided photography.

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Elizabeth Raftery is senior editor of Blast. Follow her on Twitter.

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