Back in October, we posted how excited we were about the 2020 lineup for Knoxville's Big Ears festival. Anthony Braxton! Terry Riley! We were so excited that we dug deeply into our life savings and shelled out the money for a top-level, full-access pass for the entire event, as well as four nights in a downtown hotel located in the center of all the action.
Our faith was reaffirmed last Tuesday when the festival announced additional acts. Poet and punk godmother Patti Smith!, who's ecstatic Horses still sounds as unsettlingly original as it did back in 1975. Electronic musician Fennesz!, who's 2019 album Agora was on our Best of 2019 list for several months before getting bumped off by something new (it's been a good year for music). And ambient wunderkinds A Winged Victory for the Sullen!
This second-line announcement is good enough to warrant attendance at Big Ears in and of itself, even without the block-buster headliners previously announced.
But part of the charm of Big Ears is that beyond just a forum to hear all our old favorites perform, it's also an opportunity to learn about and discover new artists. F'rinstance, like us, you may never have heard of Arooj Aftab before, but we can't help but notice that her band, Vulture Prince Ensemble, includes Terry Riley's son, Gyan Riley, and percussionist Shazad Ismaily, who we saw perform two years ago with Marc Ribot. Here's a pre-Vulture Prince performance by Aftab to whet our appetites and tide us over until next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment