LEWISTON —Two eclectic up-and-coming indie bands, the David Wax Museum and Dawn Landes & The Hounds, will perform at Bates College on Saturday, May 21.

Named Americana Artist of the Year in the 2010 Boston Music Awards, the David Wax Museum has been called “pure, irresistible joy” by NPR’s Bob Boilen and was hailed by TIME.com for “virtuosic musical skill and virtuous harmonies.”

David Wax and Suz Slezak fuse Mexican folk with American roots and indie rock to create a unique Mex-Americana aesthetic. They combine Latin rhythms, call-and-response hollering and the donkey jawbone, a traditional percussion instrument from Veracruz.

Self-released in February, the band’s latest album, “Everything Is Saved,” has propelled the Museum into the national spotlight. Dubbed one of the Top 10 acts of this year’s South by Southwest festival by Time magazine, it was boosted by a March appearance on NPR’s World Cafe.

A Kentucky native now based in New York City, singer-songwriter Landes has toured as a solo with such country-folk and indie-rock stalwarts as Josh Ritter, Drive-By Trucker Jason Isbell, Alexi Murdoch and The Swell Season. Landes’ first self-released records, “Dawn’s Music” and the EP “two three four” effectively proved her talent, but it was 2008’s acclaimed “Fireproof” (Cooking Vinyl) that revealed it to the world.

Around that time her bluegrass cover of Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks,” performed with an elderly group of Texans called The WST Band, became a YouTube favorite.

Her fourth studio album, “Sweet Heart Rodeo,” was released in 2009 to critical acclaim.

Performing with Landes will guitarist John Kaufman and drummer Ray Rizzo, aka The Hounds.

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. Tickets are $18, $10 for students and seniors. Tickets cost $20/$12 the day of the show. For more information, call 786-6163 or email olinarts@bates.edu.

The David Wax Museum was named Americana Artist of the Year in the 2010 Boston Music Awards.

Making up Dawn Landes & The Hounds are Landes, Josh Kaufman and Ray Rizzo.