Big Ears Festival 2017 - "On the Ground" Reviews

[100423]

Sounds like an awesome time, guys!
Thanks for the report!

[Jerjo]

I've been mostly following this from Batt's posts on FB. Kinda curious about a couple of these acts now, Supersilent and Deathprod after reading the reviews. Then again, I'm a Wilco fan so what the fuck do I know about music.

[markwoll]

I've been mostly following this from Batt's posts on FB. Kinda curious about a couple of these acts now, Supersilent and Deathprod after reading the reviews. Then again, I'm a Wilco fan so what the fuck do I know about music.

John has a 'deeper appreciation' of Deathprod and Supersilent' than I will ever have.
I thought Deathprod was a more immersive experience than I have had at a musical event.
He pretty much had your complete attention, there really was no room in your mind for anything else during the performance.
Stunning works as a non hyperbolic description.

Supersilent was different. They demanded your attention and did not offer time to contemplate what was happening.
It was chaotic and changing. As I noted earlier I found myself drifting off in a trancelike mood. I was aware that time had passed, how much I was unsure.

I am not sure much of this would translate into a static recording. The crushing volume alone would be hard ( and perhaps foolhardy ) to replicate.
If the chance ever arose again, I suspect that would be never, I would witness Deathprod again. Hell Yeah!

Oh yeah, I like Wilco too, especially after seeing them live. I will do that again.

[neuroticdog]

Thanks for all the reviews/reports from the ground...really appreciated them and enjoyed reading each and every one!

I'm a little surprised there was no luv for Threadgill though...didnt anyone make his show? (If I was there, he would have been a "must see")

best
Michael

[markwoll]

Thanks for all the reviews/reports from the ground...really appreciated them and enjoyed reading each and every one!

I'm a little surprised there was no luv for Threadgill though...didnt anyone make his show? (If I was there, he would have been a "must see")

best
Michael

The extreme variety of the schedule is an aspect of the weekend that is hard to work around.
The time overlaps and distance between venues on top of the performances requires tough choices.

I think that if you tried hard and were pretty rigid, you could have had a musical weekend that was exclusive to a genre.
There were enough folk/singer songwriter or jazz ( straight or bent ) , Avant weird, rock-ish, or classicalish slots where you could do one to the exclusion of the others.
Why would you? Not sure.
Threadgill, and Bley were both on my early schedules. When the time came I was elsewhere.
Regrets? I've had a few. But, I had a good time exploring.

[Jefferson James]

distance between venues

Days Between Stations should play there.

I, too, have read and appreciated the from-the-field reviews, and checked out some of the artists you guys were mentioning. Such a huge umbrella of approaches. I've been told I should like Wilco but I've already had a root canal; I permanently do not get that band. Deathprod, just listening on YouTube, didn't make it, but his art is definitely connecting and I think it's cool you were blown away by the guy in performance. Meanwhile I could listen to Supersilent and see/hear how in a live setting it could be really weird and intense.

Thanks again for the fine reportage.

[JKL2000]

I really enjoyed the reports too. I've always enjoyed reading about people's personal experiences at festivals. But this festival seemed unusual, so thanks for the top-rank reporting!

[walt]

I appreciate the reports, gents.

[battema]

Thanks for all the reviews/reports from the ground...really appreciated them and enjoyed reading each and every one!

I'm a little surprised there was no luv for Threadgill though...didnt anyone make his show? (If I was there, he would have been a "must see")

best
Michael

As I recall, Threadgill's set overlapped with Deathprod at the end, and quite honestly after Deathprod I needed to breathe for a bit

Sorry to have missed you this year, Mike! Hoping we get a chance to cross paths at next year's festival (which has already been announced for the 3/22/2018 timeframe).

[NogbadTheBad]

Yeah, post Deathprod was certainly chill out time, doubt I would have appreciated anything. Home safe & sound last night, now back to the real world & see what has blown up in the last 3 work days.

[battema]

Glad everyone made it back home safely. I can't lie...the 8 hour drive home isn't exactly the highlight of the weekend for me, but for that much musical awesome in 4 days? Totally worth it

[aith01]

I think Wilco is the only band mentioned here that I have heard.

Love Wilco myself, and have for 10+ years. The one time I got to see them live was quite a psychedelic experience with the sonics/noise and lightshow. They played a good bit from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

[battema]

I have Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born, but for me personally their show at Big Ears didn't really remind me of that sound. But the theater was packed and the audience was pretty enthusiastic. So, maybe just not my personal cuppa.

On the flipside, I rather liked the bit of exodus that happened within the first 5-10 minutes of the Supersilent set

[battema]

So...just to pluck one lovely little gem from Big Ears 2017. Anyone who enjoys really clever/quirky/electronic pop should do themselves a solid and give this a watch. Probably the single most fun performance of the entire weekend.

[aith01]

I have Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born, but for me personally their show at Big Ears didn't really remind me of that sound. But the theater was packed and the audience was pretty enthusiastic. So, maybe just not my personal cuppa.

I hear ya. And the thing about Wilco is they change a good bit from one album to the next -- sometimes you get concise Americana-tinged pop/rock songs, and other times you'll get 10-minute noise experiments, or sometimes a mixture of both. I didn't care as much for their Star Wars album in 2015, but not everything can be a success for everyone.

On the flipside, I rather liked the bit of exodus that happened within the first 5-10 minutes of the Supersilent set

That's funny. I still have yet to check out Supersilent, but one day hopefully.

[NogbadTheBad]

So...just to pluck one lovely little gem from Big Ears 2017. Anyone who enjoys really clever/quirky/electronic pop should do themselves a solid and give this a watch. Probably the single most fun performance of the entire weekend.

And it's on bandcamp

https://annahmeredith.bandcamp.com/album/varmints

[Guitarplyrjvb]

Here's a review from today's Wall Street Journal

By JIM FUSILLI
March 27, 2017 3:34 p.m. ET
1 COMMENTS
Knoxville, Tenn.

Supremely talented and eager to stretch their abilities, the musicians who played the annual Big Ears Festival here Thursday through Sunday moved comfortably among different forms, ranging from unadorned folk to wildly experimental music. Their cross-genre meanderings, eclectic and eccentric in any other context, encouraged fruitful alliances, thus serving to demonstrate why the silo-destroying Big Ears is a premier festival unlike any other.

The busiest collaborator here may have been Glenn Kotche, best known as the drummer of Wilco, with whom he played a full two-hour set on Friday that was characteristic of that excellent sextet. Under Jeff Tweedy’s leadership, it continues to marry folk-rock with elements of free jazz, moving to the edges of each genre. Mr. Kotche also gave a solo recital; played with bassist Darin Gray as the duo On Fillmore; and performed with bassist Gyan Riley, as the rhythm section propelling the combustible cellist Maya Beiser in a set that was bookended by Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” and “Kashmir.”

Shara Nova of My Brightest Diamond
Shara Nova of My Brightest Diamond PHOTO: CORA WAGONER
Mr. Kotche wasn’t the only member of Wilco who was busy. Mr. Tweedy discharged noisy, squealing electric guitar with the duo Chikamorachi featuring Mr. Gray and drummer Chris Corsano. Wilco guitarist Nels Cline played a Saturday evening set with his wife Yuka C. Honda, then returned on Sunday afternoon for a show with singer-songwriter Dustan Louque. Earlier, the band’s keyboardist and sound designer Mikael Jorgensen and art historian James Merle Thomas, who work together as Quindar, performed electronic music in support of archival video of the early space program. The Quindar concert kicked off an opportunity for a self-guided triple bill: In separate venues, next came vocalist Theo Bleckmann and guitarist Ben Monder, who explored, with a heavy application of wavy electronica, their contemporary jazz catalogue; and cellist Oliver Coates, who offered a program ranging from French composer Olivier Messiaen to sharp-angled new-music pieces.


Many musicians slipped easily into alternate settings. On Thursday evening, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble was on stage with Blonde Redhead as that alt-rock trio repurposed its 2004 album “Misery is a Butterfly” and the next night ACME joined composer Jóhann Jóhannsson in a performance of his “Drone Mass.” The Dave Harrington Group gave a concert of its experimental electronic jazz and later provided a improvised score for the Coen brothers’ film “No Country for Old Men.” Prior to playing with her My Brightest Diamond group—a lean trio now featuring bassist Chris Bruce and drummer Abe Rounds—Shara Nova joined vocalists DM Stith and Padma Newsome in a riveting reading of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s song cycle “Unremembered.” On Thursday, guitarist Shane Parish performed frenetic electric jazz with drummer Ryan Oslance in their duo Ahleuchatistas, then re-emerged the next day with an engaging set of acoustic blues.


Tucked within the broader event, Big Ears presented a superior jazz festival. On Sunday night, in an extraordinary performance, Henry Threadgill and his quartet Zooid, featuring a guitar, low-end brass, cello and drums as well as Mr. Threadgill’s flute and alto sax, created polyphonic grooves that seemed to synchronize free jazz adventurism and bop’s swing. Earlier in the week, Carla Bley shone in concert with the highly regarded Knoxville Jazz Orchestra—whose trombonist Don Hough played with gusto and delight—and in another show, with her trio featuring bassist Steve Swallow and saxophonist Andy Sheppard. Propelled by the subtle perpetual-motion machine Warren Smith on drums and supported by flautist Nicole Mitchell, Henry Grimes presented an evening of free jazz with his double bass as the meaty centerpiece.

In the field of experimental music, Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum each gave a solo concert and then reunited as Musica Elettronica Viva for a Saturday afternoon performance that blended electronica and classical music much as the group had when it began 50 years ago. The experimentalist and krautrock innovator Hans-Joachim Roedelius gave a solo recital at a church. Perhaps it’s noteworthy that Mr. Roedelius is in his 80s as are Ms. Bley and Messrs. Grimes and Smith; and the members of Musica Elettronica Viva as well as Messrs. Swallow and Threadgill, are in their 70s, as is the composer and pianist Meredith Monk, who appeared with a charming vocal ensemble: Big Ears’ lack of bias extends to age as well as its definition of worthy music.


Country of origin wasn’t a barrier either. Musicians from Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Lebanon, Senegal, Sweden and Ukraine were featured. Nine concerts were given by Norwegian musicians, including the avant-garde improvisational group Supersilent. Its members, Arve Henriksen, Helge Sten and Ståle Storløkken, also performed in other configurations with Mr. Sten appearing with his ambient-music project Deathprod.

Yes, it was dizzying and perhaps too much for one music fan. But bouncing among venues in downtown Knoxville, one delighted in the awkward beauty, the intellectualism that precedes an emotional reaction, and the tension and suspense in musical expression liberated from the confines of genre and overt commercialism. Whether it appeared in the aural equivalent of found art or in the complex precision of a jazz big band or a classical orchestra, what was valued most here was collaborative risk, independence and a willingness to experiment. Thus Big Ears 2017 was a reaffirmation of the vitality of global contemporary music occurring far from the center.

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal’s rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com and follow him on Twitter @wsjrock.

[battema]

Interesting review, although you can kind of see which sets he actually attended, versus the ones he just heard about

But still...press is press, and good press is pretty damned awesome. Thanks for sharing!

[Guitarplyrjvb]

^^ Jim Fusilli get's around. I think he's covered Bent Knee and one or two others of the Cunieform family.

[NogbadTheBad]

Rolling Stone had a review as well

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/li...review-w473743

The Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee provides a listening experience unlike any other in America. At the 2017 edition, Norwegian drone musician Deathprod blasted deafening noise inside a 1920s theater listed in the National Register of Historic Places, while the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra played Bach on the floor of a rock club. Cell phones got alerts that a performance by Chinese guzheng player Wu Fei was at capacity, while Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy could be found squalling to a small audience in an improv noise band. A hundred volunteers rubbed rocks and spilled seeds for a hushed percussion piece in the Knoxville Museum of Art, while cellist Oliver Coates shredded Iannis Xenakis in a sweatshirt.

It was the biggest, boldest lineup in the history of the fest – now expanded from three days to four. Despite some appearances from art-centic rock bands (Wilco, Tortoise, Deerhoof) the leash tethering Big Ears to indie-world weirdos has been somewhat loosened. Instead it was a practically headliner-free assortment of contemporary classical, jazz artists and soloists from across the globe.

It would be presumptuous to call classical composers the new rock stars, but this weekend it was definitely hard not to see the edges of genre fraying, the worlds of classical music and popular music blurring, the pretentions of "high art" crumbling as beers clinked in the background. No moment showcased this better than festival highlight Drone Mass performed by Arrival composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Drone Mass – performed by Jóhannsson with string quartet ACME and vocal group Theater of Voices – seems designed to tug at modern heartstrings. It has the glacial drama of minimalism, the familiar harmonies of church music, the keening drama of pop, the deep digital rumble of modern cinema – all in movements that feel about the length of a rock song. Played to a standing crowd in rock club Mill & Mine, the piece made it difficult not to adhere to the unwritten, long-held orchestra rule of not applauding until the end. But after a movement where a vocal drone met a cello slide – the satisfying sound of a properly tuned guitar, an effect like a film coming into focus – the boundary was breached and torrents of applause followed.

The major classical event of the weekend was British minimalist Gavin Bryars, conducting his ensemble in the United States for the first time ever. He played his 1971 arrangement Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, a piece for a tape loop of a singing homeless man and his swooning orchestra following along. The work's chill-inducing effect was multiplied by the orchestra's being front and center, while the man's voice floated above. Bryars himself played the mournful double bass phrase. In a performance of his somber 1972 piece The Sinking of the Titanic, the addition of a multimedia presentation of archival footage and Philip Jeck's crackling turntables gave it serious emotional weight.

Nief-Norf
Nief-Norf and a volunteer army of musicians perform at Big Ears 2017. Christian Stewart
For the first scheduled performance of the weekend, Andy Bliss of local percussion ensemble Nief-Norf played a slow mallet roll on a ride cymbal to kick off Pauline Oliveros' composition Single Stroke Roll Meditation. As the overtones blended with other percussionists in the room, the clashing created waves of sound like a somber fire alarm. The ensemble followed with Michael Gordon's Timber, an hour-long collection of malleted flurries on blocks of wood. Seeing these waves of wood clunks in person reveals things that can't be translated onto the 2011 recording: the way the sounds change as the mallets get closer to the center, the machinelike harmony of the performers, the way an already polyrhythm-heavy piece required the performers to work out complex patterns between their own left and right hands.

Flautist Claire Chase performed a solo version of Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint that was blissful and sparkling and later performed the commissioned "An Empty Garlic" by Du Yun – a piece full of breaths, barks, sizzles and onomatopoeia – swooping about with her flute like she was wrestling a cobra. Oliver Coates performed a selection of cello pieces that ranged from the gnarled scrapes of Xenakis' Kottos to the gently plucked arrangement of Squarepusher's "Tommib Help Buss." The ACME string quartet added vocals (courtesy of Theater of Voices) and percussion (courtesy of Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier) to a version of Charlemagne Palestine's Strumming Music that was questionable at first but dramatic by the end and sounded like the third note of the Also Sprach Zarathustra melody held for minutes. Matmos gave Robert Ashley's text-based opera Perfect Lives (Private Parts) a squishy makeover, transforming "The Bar (Differences)" until it sounded a bit like the giddy art-droll New Wave of the Flying Lizards or Trio.

The peak of Big Ears' modern composition focus, at least in ambition, was the performance of Michael Pisaro's A Wave and Waves, a work for 100 musicians gently sandpapering rocks, bowing brake drums, ripping paper and pouring pebbles. With the audience seated in and around the performers, it was as immersive as listening experiences got over the weekend. The piece functioned somewhat like electronic music, with noises combining into grainy spills and tinnitus squeals, and actually felt more familiar in chaos than repose.

Carla Bley
Carla Bley performs at Big Ears 2017. Andrew Gresham
Leading the impressive jazz roster, icon Carla Bley conducted the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra with sharp motions. Her five-part 2001 composition "The National Anthem" ("What better time," she quipped with a laugh), is technically a big band piece, but the minor-key funkiness (anchored by bassist Steve Swallow) and dissonant satire of the Francis Scott Key composition made it part Funkadelic, part Spike Jones, part On the Corner. Recent Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Threadgill's Zooid brought an unlikely set up (acoustic guitar, cello, tuba, flute, drums) to unlikely arrangements, coalescing into lumbering flat-tire rhythms. Matana Roberts played a jazz show that felt like a noise show, complete with drones, loops and some shouting over the chaos, bringing some of the narratives of her 2011 album Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres into the intimate swirl of her more recent work. The 74-year-old free-jazz drummer Bobby Kapp teamed with pianist Matthew Shipp for an amazing dance of improvisation. Kapp's loose-limbed playing drifted in and out of Shipp's precise, almost militaristic tumbles of notes for a performance that swung between jaunty, apocalyptic and almost telepathically in sync. Steve Lehman and Sélébéyone played funky jazz-rap like loops going out of phase, walking the lines of groove and anti-groove. The performers were rhythmic marvels, the music feeling like funk but working like prog, with MCs rapping over 10/4 rhythms and the band hitting insane accents. Still, for all their wowing arrangements, the audience pleaser was the rapid-fire chops and high energy of Senegalese rapper Gaston Bandimic.

Henry Threadgill
Henry Threadgill performs at Big Ears 2017. Cora Wagoner
Norwegian trio Supersilent played a midnight improv set that blended elements of ambient jazz trumpet, heavy-metal menace and harsh laptop jabs. Building from slow rumbles to jarring staccato electronics, the band had the explosive stage presence of a rock band going into full gear while doling out sprays of digital shrapnel that fell in arrhythmic globs. The following night, that group's Helge Sten a.k.a. Deathprod would perform what is often called "dark ambient," but at that decibel level felt more like "doom shoegaze." His drones, at incredibly high volumes, occasionally sounded like a drill was boring through the Tennessee Theater. A series of eight siren-like jump scares, pulse-quickening and flinch-enabling, were easily the most visceral moment of the weekend.

Musica Elettronica Viva, royalty of noise and electronic music dating back to the mid-Sixties, worked with a gentle palette of Satie-esque piano drips, bluegrass samples, digital splats, searing noise and a quick run-through of "Drunken Sailor." As improv, it was masterful, full of patient layering, gentle touches and a mix of the digital and analog. As a performance, it was a comedy of errors, with an in-the-round performance providing a perfect view of the mess on Alvin Curran's crashing laptop. Jeff Tweedy joined powerhouse drummer Chris Corsano and bassist Darin Gray (a.k.a. Chikamorachi) for some splattery noise-jazz. The Wilco star couldn't exactly compete with their insane battery of sound – Gray rubbing his bass with what looked like a splash cymbal and Corsano rapidly exploding – and the performance felt like a Monet hung next to two Jackson Pollocks. Still, Tweedy's patient rumble, generous feedback and a little twang gave them a vibe like Neil Young and Crazy Horse gone John Zorn. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith spilled forth with deep, gorgeous, prismatic drones and colorful projections. One of the moment's most popular and buzzy experimental musicians thanks to her 2016 album Ears, an audience hungry for more let out an "awwww" when the lights went on instead of an encore.

The audiences for the musical performances were passionate and voluminous throughout. Singer-songwriter My Brightest Diamond filled the Bijou Theater to capacity. There have been stages at Bonnaroo that had less people than a Steve Lehman show with a 50-minutes-late start. Said vocal gymnast Meredith Monk after an a cappella song that danced across melodic logic: "I don't know if I've felt such a generous and warm audience in a long, long time."

[JKL2000]

From that WSJ Review:

"one delighted in the awkward beauty, the intellectualism that precedes an emotional reaction, and the tension and suspense in musical expression liberated from the confines of genre and overt commercialism"

He kinda just defined Prog, didn't he? Of course in saying so, it's no longer liberated from the confines of genre.

To label it is to destroy it, I guess. Sigh...

[NogbadTheBad]

Big Ears buys

Horse Lords - Incantations
Sarah Kirkland Snider - Unremembered
Ahleuchatistas - The Same & The Other
Theo Bleckmann - Elegy
Supersilent - 11
Deathprod - Treetop Drive
Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die

[battema]

Gosh, let's see...

Roedelius / (CM) Hausswolff - Nordlicht [vinyl]
Sarah Kirkland Snider - Unremembered
Gavin Bryars - The Fifth Century
Roedelius / Story - Inlandish

[Scrotum Scissor]

From that WSJ Review:

"one delighted in the awkward beauty, the intellectualism that precedes an emotional reaction, and the tension and suspense in musical expression liberated from the confines of genre and overt commercialism"

He kinda just defined Prog, didn't he? Of course in saying so, it's no longer liberated from the confines of genre.

I dunno; are Robert Wyatt, Art Zoyd, Deyss and Lana Lane somehow all belonging to the one and the same "genre"? Or does "prog" imply something else with Ms. Lane than with the Zoyds? Seeing how Lana is arguably a bit more directly informed by Jon Anderson than those Artz are - wouldn't that indicate that she's in fact somewhat more "prog" than they are?

OMG! It's a conundrum waiting to undrum its Humdrum!

[Steve F.]

I would have been very conflicted trying to decide between Deathprod or Henry Threadgill....