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Big Ears Festival 2025: 3/27 - 3/30

Michael Rother

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Having most recently attended Big Ears Festival in 2019, 4 lineups and 1 pandemic ago, I came into Knoxville last month wondering how much the festival had changed. When I departed on Sunday, I had an answer: a lot, and not at all. As festivals are wont to do over the years, Big Ears had gotten bigger, with more artists, twice as many venues, and therefore, more scheduling conflicts. If you wanted to see entire sets, you had a greater need to plan for travel time from venue to venue; on the flipside, if a set ended early, it opened up a world of possibilities of other sets you might make in time.

Still, just as before, plenty of festival goers were happy to hop around. At any given show, large groups of people left after every couple songs or 10 minutes, so as to catch the beginning or end of this or that, their seats or floor space immediately filled by others with the same idea. Most importantly, every time the music resumed after the exchange of people, I was immediately sucked back in. There's so much incredible music at Big Ears that no matter where you are, the music emanating from the stage feels like the only thing going on in the globe. It remains an experience that's alluring and welcoming at a time we need to connect with each other.

Here were my favorite (full) sets at Big Ears Festival 2025.

Marissa Nadler & Milky Burgess

Marissa Nadler

"It's so funny to play early in the daylight," said Marissa Nadler during her 6:00 P.M. set at The Point Church. "I normally clearly frequent dark, dungeony corners." On the contrary, I posit that the brightness and location were a perfect match for Nadler's Lynchian levels of contrast, songs of heartbreak and murder juxtaposed with sheer, sunny beauty. First and foremost, Nadler, accompanied by longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Milky Burgess, performed five new songs from an unannounced, unreleased album, a "loosely-based concept record about some out-there stuff." Though we purportedly got the stripped down versions of the songs (as opposed to the studio versions that a wide array of harmonies), what I heard was sweeping, country western-inspired tunes whose instrumentation wouldn't have sounded out of place later in the night at SUSS. Per usual, the new songs punched me in the gut--"Don't let her destroy you like I did," Nadler sang on "Smoke Screen", alongside Burgess' warbling orchestral synth--and they also seamlessly blended with highlights of Nadler's back catalog. You might think that Nadler should be playing in a dimly-lit club--hell, a graveyard--but a church show was a unique, awe-inspiring start to Big Ears for me. As she sang, "Oh, I saw the light today" on July standout "Dead City Emily", the silhouette of birds entered my peripheral vision, as they were flying by the stained glass windows, more wistful, sad, and emblematic of the passage of time than of the spookiness you're used to with Nadler.

SUSS

The trio of Bob Holmes, Jonathan Gregg, and Pat Irwin--otherwise known as SUSS--are tailor-made for a festival like Big Ears. That is, not only is their unmistakable ambient country able to fill theaters, warehouses, and churches alike, but the spacious minimalism of their sound makes them rife for collaboration. Throughout the weekend, SUSS stepped on stage with the likes of Immersion, Alan Sparhawk, Mary Lattimore, and William Tyler. Yet, their 45-minute set alone at Regas Square was atmospheric and rich, anchored by the steadiness of Gregg's pedal steel. Holmes switched among acoustic guitar, violin, and mandolin, Irwin acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and keyboard. Holmes whistled over long-held notes, the moment seeming like a blissful eternity as lo-resolution, home movie-quality footage of roads and landscapes played in the background. The show gave me nostalgia for something I never experienced, the modus operandi of a band like SUSS looking to evoke a feeling.

SUSS' Bob Holmes

SUSS' Holmes & Jonathan Gregg

Carlos Niño & Friends

"I think that the ‘& Friends’ concept is really about me doing whatever I want, with whoever I want. Just really freeing it up," percussionist, producer, and curator Carlos Niño said years ago in an interview explaining the ever-shifting lineup of records billed to Carlos Niño & Friends. Listen to any given collection, though--whether presented in studio format or live--and you hear a group of people spiritually joining to improvise sounds that envelop you like a warm blanket. To me, what was most impressive about Niño & Friends' first night set at Jackson Terminal during his residency at Big Ears was how well the performance gained momentum. Swirling arpeggios were broken up by Latin jazz-style breakdowns, only to be built back up in conjunction with cascading hand percussion and dual saxophone, unexpectedly loud and vigorous. Of course, though the six musicians on stage (Niño, keyboardist Surya Botofasina, multi-instrumentalist Idris Ackamoor, saxophonist Josh Johnson, multi-instrumentalist Nate Mercerau, percussionist Adam Rudolph) had never played in that specific incarnation, they've crossed paths many different times. Since we last caught up with him, Niño co-produced Andre 3000's debut studio album New Blue Sun, which included Botofasina and Mercerau; he also released a trio record with those two via LEAVING, an International Anthem album with Botofasina and Rudolph, and a New Dawn album with Mercerau and Ackamoor. (Not to mention, at Big Ears, Niño held a listening party for the Openness Trio with Mercerau and Johnson.) Perhaps his greatest skill lies in bringing together like-minded creators who are bound to make magic.

Idris Ackamoor

Surya Botofasina

Kelly Moran

Towards the end of her early afternoon set at St. John's Cathedral, pianist and composer Kelly Moran illustrated an October 2023 of heightened empathy. Yamaha Corporation had commissioned her to record pieces by the late, great Ryuichi Sakamoto for player piano. As she was immersing herself in the Japanese legend's gorgeous sonic world, Moran was also following closely Israel's genocidal retribution against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Seeing the images of bombed schools and hospitals, displaced people, and dead children disturbed Moran, but, as she stated at Big Ears, "It made me want to be even more tender and gentle in my work." Such qualities were seemingly an inherent goal of Sakamoto's music; they're also consistent with Moran's continued exploration of what makes us human. Her latest album Moves in the Field (Warp) was born from a Yamaha-gifted Disklavier, a piano wired to play from memory or a laptop's input, and the record's emotional resonance was inspired by her finding a new family in the widow and son of an ex-boyfriend. At the Cathedral, Moran alternated between songs consisting of solely piano and piano combined with electronics. No matter what, her playing was lush, melancholic, and all-encompassing.

Moran

Jessica Pratt

There's something about grand performing arts spaces like the Tennessee Theatre that takes you back in, or maybe out of, time. Never am I otherwise inclined to purchase and consume a massive bucket of overly salted popcorn, sit back, suspend reality, and be entertained. The music of Jessica Pratt has a similar effect on me (minus making me want to eat overly salted popcorn). At Big Ears, I saw 11 of the same 16 songs Pratt and her venerable backing band (bassist Nico Leibman, saxophonist Diego Herrera, drummer Riley Fleck, and keyboardist Matthew McDermott) played at Pitchfork Music Festival last year, including everything from her latest and best album Here in the Pitch (Mexican Summer). Yet, the epic nature of the venue amplified the sound and the retro vibe of Pratt's ethereal tunes. Each bossa nova-style drum clack, smooth slice of saxophone, and beatific acoustic guitar strum both reverberated within every fiber of my being and transported me to a planet where I could get lost in the haze of a bygone memory.

Still House Plants

Going into their Friday evening set at The Standard, I wasn't sure how the sound of London art rockers Still House Plants would translate live. Not because their albums are highly produced, mind you--it's just that every time I listen to Long Play, Fast Edit, and last year's If I don't make it, i love u (bison), I can't believe their combination of aesthetics tangibly exists. Nonetheless, at a breakneck pace, Still House Plants burned through their catalog, showcasing Finlay Clark's jagged riffs, David Kennedy's off-kilter drums, and Jess Hickie-Kallenbach's soulful vocals. 75 minutes of post-rock and R&B later, I still didn't really believe what I had witnessed, the mark of a truly original band in 2025.

Still House Plants' David Kennedy

Still House Plants' Finlay Clark

101 Audio Odyssey

Every time I go to Big Ears, I have to see one "only at Big Ears"-type performance. The Festival is an ideal place for artists to debut new material or a new band, form a supergroup, or simply improvise with their peers. I don't know in what category 101 Audio Odyssey fit, which is why I made sure to make time for their late night set at The Mill & Mine. In other words, it could have been the first and last time for me to watch who bassist and bandleader Jamaaladeen Tacuma had assembled on stage for 101 Audio Odyssey: fellow Philadelphia hero and saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, guitarist Nels Cline, drummer, keyboardist, and vocalist King Noli, and trumpeter Braxton Bateman. The quintet played a dynamic variety of funk- and rock-addled jams filled with jaw-dropping moments, like Wilkins and Bateman's conversational lockstep giving way to a huge Noli solo, or Tacuma's off-beat picking serving to emphasize Cline's controlled, yet noisy shredding. During the middle of the set, Tacuma spoke about how over the past year, the Philly music community had seen multiple significant losses: Soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez, who Tacuma had worked with on his debut album Show Stopper (after her appearance in Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 film Diva), passed away in February 2024, and just a day before the Festival, so did Helen Haynes, Chief Cultural Officer for the City of Philadelphia. Tacuma's words inspired the crowd to extend some brotherly love back to the city that's given us such amazing music for decades.

Braxton Bateman

Nels Cline

Jamaaladeen Tacuma

Wadada Leo Smith

Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith

In the liner notes for Defiant Life (ECM), the second duo album from pianist and composer Vijay Iyer and trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith, Iyer writes of an "aesthetic of necessity." He propounds that when he and Smith work together, in comparison to other collaborations he's done, the sounds they make emerge as if desperate to escape a corporeal realm. You could argue that these sounds themselves are defiant, much like the subjects of hegemonic resistance to whom Iyer and Smith pay tribute on Defiant Life, from the assassinated Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba to Palestinian writer and poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2023.

At the same time, in an ECM podcast discussing the record, Smith spoke of the arc of an album and a live performance as doors needing to be opened by the audience. During Iyer and Smith's early Saturday afternoon commemoration of Defiant Life at the Bijou Theater, I thought of the "aesthetic of necessity" and door metaphor in concert with each other. "Prelude: Survival" began similarly to how it does on the album, with deep bass distortion, but whereas in the studio version, Smith's trumpet sounded restrained and Iyer's piano light and sprinkled, live, their playing was forceful and expressive. "Sumud" also started faithfully, carrying over the recorded version's wincing electronics; while Smith's trumpet arrives in short, brilliant bursts on the studio album, his playing was soft, but mighty on stage at the Bijou. Iyer and Smith showed all types of obligatory defiance--especially from expectations, if you had heard the album--during a time when freedom is increasingly under attack. In turn, the two invited listeners to ask themselves how they, too, might live a defiant life.

Joe Lovano & Asante Santi Debriano

Joe Lovano's Paramount Quartet

Even if they're ultimately hopeful, many sets at Big Ears require you to embark on journeys of deep listening in order to get to the celebration. On the other hand, Joe Lovano's afternoon set with his Paramount Quartet (guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Asante Santi Debriano, and drummer Will Calhoun) at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium & Coliseum was instantly fun. Lovano and Lage traded solos on the jaunty opener "Congregation", preparing us for a set of showmanship. "The Great Outdoors" began with Lage's gentle licks but quickly turned into a Latin jazz-inspired song, the whole band in a sort of chaotic sync. Even a more solemn tune like "Grace Notes", which Lovano originally released with his Trio Tapestry band (drummer Carmen Castaldi and pianist Marilyn Crispell) on 2023 record Our Daily Bread, snowballed. Debriano started with bowed bass, eventually ditching the abstract sound for a plucky, tactile solo before Lage and Calhoun transformed the tune into a peppy strut. As Lovano introduced the band at the end of his 75 minutes, the entire audience clapped along, something that's usually a distracting pet peeve of mine at concerts given people's inability to keep time. At the KCAC, I joined in.

Michael Rother

Needing to go directly from the Knoxville Civic Auditorium & Coliseum to The Mill & Mine with only 15 minutes between the end of Joe Lovano and the start of NEU! and Harmonia's Michael Rother, I had two choices: walk, and be late, or zip through town on a Lime scooter and make it on time. I chose the latter, an unintentionally appropriate, adrenaline-inducing preview to the propulsive Krautrock I was about to behold. In company with guitarist Franz Bargmann, drummer Hans Lampe, and keyboardist and vocalist Vittoria Maccabruni, Rother performed classic after classic, from a jittery rendition of Harmonia highlight "Veteranissimo" to NEU! favorites "Hallogallo" and "Negativland". Better, the slower tempo tunes were just as heroic, like NEU!'s disintegrating "Seeland" and Harmonia's reflective Deluxe (Immer Wieder)". Keeping his banter to a minimum, Rother did interrupt the band's flow for an important request: "One wish from me: If you can, move freely. Dance!" The crowd followed suit like their freedom depended on it.

Hans Lampe

Gregory Uhlmann & Anna Butterss

SML

Loyal to their strategy of "Press play, and let’s go," jazz quintet SML know what they're about to do the moment they enter the stage as much as you do. That said, if you leave an SML show pining to listen to once again what you just heard, you may be in luck in the near future, as recording their shows "feels like it’s kind of in our DNA of the band," saxophonist Josh Johnson told me last June. One day, I hope to dive back into their Saturday night set at The Standard, which ascended subtly, Jeremiah Chiu live sampling Johnson into a circular flutter to mirror Anna Butterss' bendy bass. Guitarist Gregory Uhlmann then joined, and when Booker Stardrum kickstarted his drums, the crowd cheered like the payoff had arrived. SML gave us a sneaky combination of meditation and party.

Lankum's Radie Peat

Lankum

When trying to describe Big Ears Festival to people who have never been, I refer to a mix of experimental, jazz, and folk. The last genre often raises eyebrows, as if it's the antithesis of the adventurous two mentioned before them. After all, in the minds of much of the music listening public, isn't the very connotation of folk music, "music played by the people, for the people," thus the most accessible type of sound imaginable? Dublin quartet Lankum is exemplary of the folk bands that perform at Big Ears. Through their interpretations of traditional music, they surface meaning applicable to our contemporary day and challenge us to make those connections, all in between stomp-alongs and droning keens. On Saturday evening at The Mill & Mine, Ian Lynch introduced "The New York Trader", from their most recent studio album False Lankum (Rough Trade), as a song about "why you shouldn't murder innocent people...even the peasants who wrote it 200 years ago figured it out." Like many of their fellow Irish citizens, Lankum have long expressed solidarity with the Palestinian movement for self-determination, even getting a gig cancelled because of it. Thankfully, they've only dug in further; at Big Ears, they segued "The New York Trader" into "The Rocks of Palestine", a reworking of Irish folk standard "The Rocks of Bawn". The expanse of their instrumentals, such as on "The Pride of Petrvore" and "Bear Creek", left us ample room to contemplate.

Lankum

Lankum's Cormac Mac Diarmada

clipping.

Dead Channel Sky (Sub Pop), the new record from L.A.-based group clipping., may feel like a mixtape in terms of its bouncing among styles like rave, acid house, and big beat under its hybrid hip-hop and cyberpunk umbrella. However, thematically, it's remarkably cohesive despite its density. Daveed Diggs delivers diatribes of capitalism and the Internet's affect on our sense of self, throughout history. Songs like "Code" explore Afrofuturism within the context of a not-too-distant future ruled by technology and fascism. It's clipping.'s best album yet, and going into their late night set at Jackson Terminal, I was curious how they'd present its songs next to the rest of their discography.

Fortunately, Diggs knows that a great live set can flow like a great mixtape, and that the crowd came to clipping. to help them stay up late and zone, not have a lyric sheet with a million tabs open. Foregoing narrative in favor of momentum, clipping. started with the zooming maximalism of Dead Channel Sky's "Change the Channel"--literally, "Everything is very important!" goes the refrain on the song--and found back catalog hits with matching energy: "La mala ordina", "Body for the Pile", "Say the Name". Nigerian-American composer, pianist, and vocalist Counterfeit Madison joined Diggs, Jonathan Snipes, and William Hutson for a middle section of gospel-imbued songs "All in Your Head" and "Story 5", then provided ice cold vocals on "Mirrorshades Pt. 2". ("I'm just a girl that can't keep a promise / I keep my lover Adonis," sings Cartel Madras' Contra on the studio version.) And if "Dominator", track #2 on Dead Channel Sky, serves as a thesis statement for the album, live, its presence signified a return to the party, before clipping. closed out with acid bass masterpiece "Run It" and the bumping one-two punch of "Enlancing" and "Blood of the Fang". Diggs could finally take a breath as he exited the stage; I left with enough fuel to walk up the hill to my car.

clipping.'s Daveed Diggs

Lonnie Holley

Whether or not he's recently dropped an album, and independent of who or how many are joining him on stage, Lonnie Holley always improvises his live sets. I went in knowing this, even though I would have loved to hear cuts from his just-released Tonky (Jagjaguwar). The record sees Holley revealing his childhood trauma, in both metaphysical rumination and vivid detail. (Holley was hit by a car and pronounced brain-dead as a kid; he also served time at the juvenile facility Mount Meigs Campus.) He contextualizes his wounds and his story with Black history, from slavery to Black Wall Street in Tulsa. Despite it all, he calls on us to "protest with love" and "let love be your weapon." If Holley, having faced utmost brutality, can do it, why can't we?

As soon as Holley and his 10(!)-piece band started playing on Sunday afternoon at The Mill & Mine, and Holley started singing, it was obvious to me that the same ethos that inspired Tonky was permeating his mind that day. Holley has the uncanny ability to deliver words that are obtuse and free associational, yet highly spiritual, followed by clear-as-day messages. "Creativity is an act of love," he said, explaining how music saved him from being a "violent-ass dog" in response to the abuse he endured. His voice was at once growling and guttural, shaky and tender, as much of an instrument as the guitars, saxophones, bass and acoustic string instruments, and percussion behind him. As for that band, I've never seen a group so instinctually know when to swell and when to retreat, smiling and laughing the whole time. Whenever Holley interrupted our and his own trance with statements like, "I feel like I want to shut up and listen to the band play," the band took us right back into hypnosis. His show was devastatingly intense and uplifting. For as many sets as I saw in churches at Big Ears, it was Holley's that felt like a true sermon.

Shahzad Ismaily & Kramer

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