Ukrainian folk ensemble YAGÓDY discuss songs handed down across generations, lyrics using invented phonetic samples, and the theatrical instincts behind their performance at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville.
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The cellist reflects on twelve years with her quartet, the making of their fourth album, 'dance! skip! hop!', a family archive of Black life in Wyoming, and the two figures named CeCe who bookend her path in jazz.
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England's south coast gives Golden Samphire Band's debut 'Dream Is the Driver' its emotional coloring, but behind it are four decades of shared record-digging by brothers Rich and Mik Hanscomb and the transformative arrival of vocalist Hannah Lewis.
Elsa Monteith relates how Agustín Barrios-Mangoré's story runs through Paraguay's post-war reckoning, the politics of the classical guitar canon, a persona borrowed from a Guaraní chief, and a death under suspicious circumstances.
'The King of Comedy' imagined Rupert Pupkin as a cautionary figure, but over four decades later, his blend of dogged persistence and indifferent craft has become the standard operating procedure of the content era.
Placing himself in the middle of four distinct mallet improvisers, Wendel discusses how 'BaRcoDe' turned the trance-inducing logic of bars, effects pedals, and extended technique into music he describes as living "in its own little universe."
Min Xiao-Fen last set foot in Ukraine in 1988 as part of a cultural exchange with the Nanjing Chinese Traditional Orchestra, and 'Boundless,' her new duo album with bandura master Julian Kytasty, closes a loop nearly four decades in the making.
'Veins of Rain' was recorded the day percussionist Nava Dunkelman and alto saxophonist Masayo Koketsu first met, and their conversation about the album's friction, negative space, and a surprise session with Tim Berne reveals a shared indifference to scenes, lineage, and the past.
On 'Sunbeam Of No Illusion', Ben Seretan and John Thayer find melody where ambient music usually forgets to look, treating amplified mistakes, grass-bundle drumsticks, and borrowed sustain as the raw material of a minimalist document of place.
worriedaboutsatan's Gavin Miller discusses 'No Knock, No Doorbell,' his 20th release, the post-rock and electronic push and pull at its core, and what a nine-to-five job taught him about taking his time.
Barwick and Lattimore discuss 'Tragic Magic', a debut collaboration recorded on vintage instruments from the Musée de la Musique, the guilt and gratitude of leaving a burning city for Paris, and a shared dream of one day playing in James Turrell's Roden Crater.
The German-Italian producer David August returns to the piano he has known since childhood on 'Hymns,' nine devotional improvisations treated with prepared strings and recorded to preserve every creak and breath of a century-old instrument.
The former Tangerine Dream keyboardist discusses his friendship with Conrad Schnitzler, a man who proudly announced, "I'm not a musician, I just make noise," the serendipitous origins of 'Romance 76', and a Berlin underground he considers irretrievable.
Guitarist Gregory Uhlmann discusses 'Extra Stars,' a five-year collection of pieces inspired by stargazing in the California desert, and the Los Angeles musical community threaded through it.
Bassist Mike Watt joins Galecstasy's Raquel Bell and Jared Marshall in a desert mountain studio above Joshua Tree on 'Wattzotica,' a fully improvised debut where free jazz drums and exotica-inspired synth pulled something new out of Watt's bass.
Claire Devlin and Eli Davidovici of Montréal jazz combo Bellbird discuss how the quartet turned the loudest bird call on earth into compositional raw material for 'The Call,' with political conviction and collective authorship shaping everything that follows.
The Holgate sisters discuss their self-titled debut, the eccentric visionary women — from Hildegard von Bingen to Emily Dickinson — who populate their vocal lineage, and the uncanny resonance two siblings can achieve when they know each other almost too well.
Colin Blunstone discusses the new 'One Year: Live from Union Chapel' box set, the Zombies' tangled path from British Invasion hitmakers to cult favorites, and a solo career that keeps surprising six decades after it nearly ended in an office job.
Tom Excell talks through the making of Nubiyan Twist's fifth record, 'Chasing Shadows,' a collision of Afrobeat, jazz, dub, and hip-hop fueled by a rotating cast of collaborators and a growing unease with the forces pulling music away from the people who make it.
Sam Wenc spent thirteen years recording as Post Moves before putting his own name on 'Language at an Angle,' an eight-part tone poem for pedal steel and piano that reflects his extended techniques, his meditation practice, and the defiant spirit of the late Susan Alcorn.
The classically trained string player recorded her new album across 15 wilderness locations in British Columbia, embracing imperfection, improvisation, and the unpredictable feedback of the natural world.
The 2026 edition of the Big Ears Festival commences this Thursday, March 27. Here are our suggestions for the artists you should check out once the music kicks off in downtown Knoxville.
'Música Para Quinteto: Live at Jazz Cava' captures Juanma Trujillo's Barcelona quintet at full burn, following a prolific decade of recordings and a deliberate exit from New York for a life the Venezuelan guitarist believes feeds the music.
Olive Ardizoni and Michael Flanagan of the LA-based electronic duo Green-House talk imaginary video games, Sanibel Island shells, a stuffed sloth named Flanby, and the gentle stubbornness behind their new album on Ghostly International.
Erica Ashleson and Guillaume Siracusa discuss 'Clipping', the indie duo's third album, their move from DIY bedroom sessions to a French countryside studio, and why they'd happily redo a vocal take twenty times.
The experimental harpist discusses the hand-built electric instrument at the center of her practice, the spatial approach to composition she developed through decades of work with choreographers, and the grief behind 'Lament for the Maker,' her first solo record since Mills College closed.
Reissued more than fifty years after its creation, Bayeté's 'Seeking Other Beauty' finds the Bay Area composer tracing the line between his grandmother's church organ and the electric possibilities that pulled him away from the jazz masters.
Named for the Finnish concept of resilience, 'sisu' documents Kodomo's Chris Child working with vocalists for the first time, chasing analog serendipity, and making a deliberate case for the album as a form still worth defending.
A fixture in London's jazz and electronic scenes, Momoko Gill discusses her debut album 'Momoko', her years of collaborative work alongside Matthew Herbert and others, and the music she makes as the only home she's found.
The German production duo discusses their resistance to the music industry's rat race, the shift to collaborative live-band recording with trusted friends, and why protecting the raw joy of music-making matters more than chasing metrics.
The five-time Grammy winner discusses the daily tension between preservation and intervention, his analog-first approach to archival audio, and what his restoration of unreleased Stax songwriter demos revealed about the ethics of serving the archive.
Holly Tavel, Sarah Morrison, and Beatriz Ramirez-Belt discuss 'cloud, castle, lake', their improvisational rehearsal process, and why music that creates a scene beats music that creates a feeling.
In 'Shouting Out Loud,' Audrey Golden brings her background in law, gender studies, and human rights research to the Raincoats' full story, from art school in North London to the cells of the Maze.
Author and visual artist Bette A. discusses her 'Slow Stories' collaboration with Brian Eno, the pared-down storytelling she traces to Dutch culture, and her growing uncertainty about whether her progressive activism still fits the world she finds herself in.