Big Ears 2017: An Ecstasy of Outsider Sounds

Nils Okland Band tuning up, St. John's Episcopal Cathedral

I did not expect Knoxville Mayor Madeleine Rogero to toss off so many Captain Beefheart references when introducing festival founder Ashley Capps. Then again, a festival programmed like Big Ears should have extremely broad expectations. Scouting the lineup for the Big Ears Festival can be intimidating.

As festival creator Ashley Capps noted, the concept of Big Ears is inclusion, from an old folkie strumming the same chords on every song to a synthesizer trilling bleeps and squeals into beauty. What else should big ears hear? Sounds pleasant and unpleasant, familiar and foreign – for a long weekend, you could find them all in Knoxville.

Big Ears presents music of staggering breadth anchored by a number of indie rockers doing what they do best. But in three days (we were spent on Sunday and called it a festival), Nancy and I saw only one headliner (Wilco). Most of the artists who entranced us received nary a mention in the music publication write-ups of Big Ears. That’s all you can do at any music festival – chart your own course, see what piques your interest and skip the rest.

You can’t see it all. The international flavors of the festival ran deep that first night, moving from China to Sweden to Scotland to Ukraine, from ambient electronica to folk to noise rock.

Spread out at 10 venues across Knoxville, the festival settings varied as much as the music. Choosing venues from its historic theatres to old stone churches to modern music clubs immerses the festival in Knoxville’s fabric. Although all of the venues were within easy walks of each other, no one could experience Big Ears without tasting Knoxville’s downtown or its up-and-coming Old City neighborhood (look for more in subsequent blogs).

The Mill & Mine hosted the kickoff party, and the nearby Jackson Terminal served as festival headquarters. Opened in 2016, the Old City club once housed the Industrial Belting and Supply Company and has a large fenced courtyard. Even the movie theatre hosting Big Ears’ film component sat on Gay Street near the historic venues. Breweries poured special Big Ears draughts. The music began at the kickoff party, with local music collective Nief-Norf signaling that Big Ears would follow its own beat. They performed a piece with instruments placed strategically around the room, little clusters of listeners hiding the musicians. Soon we hit the street.

Blocks apart on Gay Street, Knoxville boasts two of Tennessee’s nicest older theatres, the Bijou and the Tennessee. It’s amazing to think of the neglect these buildings once endured – a few generations ago, the Bijou survived by showing adult films. The Tennessee is an ornate 1920s movie house with the flourishes of its time, the kind no theatre built today can touch. The smaller Bijou, which seats 700 to the Tennessee’s 1,600, was a 1909 addition to the Lamar House Hotel, which dated to 1817. The Bijou has an intimacy few theater venues can match. Every seat feels close to the stage.

On the Bijou stage we encountered Amelia Amper, who plays the nyckelharpa, a traditional Swedish instrument that resembled a fiddle with keyboard. The keys control the pitch the performer bows the strings. The festival gave her 30 minutes, of which she spent a fair amount explaining the instrument. She also told tales of song creation, including one inspired by seals that watched her sound check at a waterfront venue in Sweden.

Back at the Mill & Mine, Anna Meredith and her Scottish cohorts brought some raucous beats.The band seemed torn in two directions – the more powerful, complex instrumentals. The band configuration fostered complexity by having tuba and cello replace instead of bass. Soaring vocals and simpler on the more pop-friendly songs were not dissimilar from The Arcade Fire. It was the Scottish band’s first U.S. tour, and given the anthemic bent of its new material, probably not the last.

Dakhabrakha, a group dedicated to preserving Ukrainian folk music while incorporating elements and instruments from other cultures. Despite the music’s folk origins and the band’s traditional Ukrainian clothes, experimental sounds and elements of rock buzzed into their set. Lines of sight at The Standard made it difficult to see the band or even what instruments they played. By that late hour, the day of standing made my legs and feet sore. But we could have hardly asked for a better introduction to Big Ears.

On sunny east Tennessee afternoon, we huddled in St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, which filled rapidly for Wu Fei, a Chinese composer based in the U.S. Wu Fei played the guzheng, a 21-string traditional Chinese instrument. In the packed cathedral, which observed a one-out/one-in policy due to the crowd, we could scarcely hear her. Nor could we see her. I’m not sure if it was due to the size of the crowd or the sound not catching properly in the cathedral, but we only caught traces of the music, much less her banter. What we heard sounded intriguing.

Before a second cathedral show, we took an interlude to the Knoxville Museum of Art where a man in the lobby produced, whirring drones from a floor tom. Some actually recorded this with their cell phones. A pre-teen boy perfectly summed up the performance, walking behind his father on the main floor of the museum with his hands covering his ears. After five minutes, we traded the museum for a visit to the Sunsphere.

An hour later, the emotional core of our Big Ears lineup filled the St. John’s with fragile, emotional music. The genre-splicing tones of the Nils Okland Band were a revelation. Along with Okland on the Hardanger fiddle, the band features Rolf-Erik Nylstrom on saxophone, Sigbjorn Apeland on harmonium (for some reason wore leather pants), Mats Eilertsen on double bass and Hakon Morche Stene on percussion and vibraphone.

What they accomplished defied genre, marrying folk, classical, jazz and more abstract instruementation. At moments the sound vacillated between the 17th and the 21st centuries. Often the melodies bore a slight resemblance to those of Sigur Ros and their ability to elicit emotion from a handful of well-placed notes. Nylstrom’s skill with the saxophone elicited notes more familiar to flutes and other brass instruments.

By the final song and its mournful bass backbone, my … ahem … allergies were really acting up. After this set, I felt torn from my moorings. Okland had never performed in the U.S. before. The band booked a three-date tour around Big Ears then returned to Norway. Fortunately, they would not leave Knoxville for several days and Okland scheduled two other Big Ears sets, performing as a duo with other band members.

The schedule made it impossible to catch everyone. Despite playing two Friday shows, my lifelong streak of missing Robyn Hitchcock remains intact. I have never been a huge fan but know of Hitchcock’s songwriting prowess (I Often Dream of Trains is a worthy listen). Besides, Big Ears scheduled Robyn Hitchcock against the one film from its Jonathan Demme retrospective Nancy and I could not miss. Neither of us had seen Silence of the Lambs on the big screen, and a late afternoon showing beckoned us. Given how much we quote the unnerving classic, the film represented a good break from the music. The 26-year-old film drew a solid crowd. Seeing it on the big screen enhanced my opinion of the film. Demme’s use of reflections and having characters talk to the camera gives the film a visually distinctive look, a rare film worthy of its Oscars.

 The only headliner we saw was Wilco. Playing in front of a full crowd, they hit the sweet spot, culling songs from their entire career, slotting country rockers next to the band’s more angular work from the 2000’s. Cry All Day and If I Ever was a Child from Schmilco, their latest album, fit the intricate puzzle of a Wilco show. The most surprising moment came when Wilco reimagined their noisy, psychedelic classic Misunderstood as a country ballad with pedal steel and banjo. We lasted through 13 songs, heading for the exit as the first mournful chimes of Impossible Germany radiated from Nels Cline’s guitar.

Thankfully they did not break into Hotel Arizona, a song I’ve yet to hear live. The music did not drive us out, just the crowd – the lone person standing and dancing in our section was right in front of us, a woman with a particular annoying voice spoke for the entire length of the set and continually tried to talk louder than the music.

TN Theatre

For anyone wanting more Wilco, the band obliged and stuck around, albeit in different forms. Jeff Tweedy improvised with Chikamorachi. The lineup also featured sets from Nels Cline and his wife Yuka Honda (of Ciba Mato), many performances from drummer Glenn Kotche and We didn’t catch any of them, but we did pass Pat Sansone and John Stirratt (separately, or that would have constituted a performance their band Autumn Defense).

From there we beelined toward Tortoise at the Mill & Mine, catching a chunk of their soundcheck. The room filled in as midnight neared and Tortoise wordlessly took the stage. The music remains challenging yet entertaining. Don’t ask me the names of songs. Anywhere from six to nine sounded familiar at some point in their show. Tortoise moves at its own pace, attacking and retreating as the song moods demand. Their brand of instrumental music lends itself to standing back, blocking out all other stimuli and soaking in the notes. Few bands fit the late-night show this well.

We joined the proceeding later on Saturday, choosing to spend a little time experiencing Knoxville. We ended up down the street from the Mill and Mine in time for the Musica Elettronica Viva. It was hard not to get excited at the sight of a Steinway grand piano in the center of the floor. It was less exciting when the ambient music was rendered almost inaudible by the constant opening and closing of the room’s heavy wooden patio doors.

Since the Steinway’s keys receiving only sporadic tinkles, the august instrument almost felt superfluous. Musica Elettronica Viva has 50-year history of improvisational music, seen here through a recitation of Jesus’ calming of the storm on the Sea of Galilee and samples of bluegrass music (I heard pieces of Foggy Mountain Breakdown).

Church Street Methodist

As the day dimmed we found ourselves hunting for the Church Street United Methodist Church. The soaring church rose near the Tennessee River and hosted Nils Okland and harmonium player Sigbjorn Apeland for their second Big Ears show. Apeland stepped away from the harmonium for the second half of their set to play the church’s organ, pulling dynamic tones from the organ I might not have thought possible. As they played the church’s ample stained-glass windows capture sunset and twilight.

Behind swirling visuals, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith turned the Mill & Mine into a workshop on the Buchla 100 synthesizer. She charged into an electrifying 45-minute set, producing a startling array of sound occasionally punctuated by her soothing voice. Her synthesizer has an inescapable steampunk vibe, as she plugs and unplugs cords and uses knobs to manipulate the sounds. The audience called for an encore but she gently declined even as they shouted disappointment. After the intensity of her performance, I didn’t blame her.

We had one more act before closing out our Big Ears weekend. From the Bijou’s balcony, the smoke machines stirred as an informal introduction to Supersilent, an Norwegian improvisational trio – Arve Henriksen, Helge Sten and Stale Storlokken.

Despite their jazz backgrounds, the music definitely possesses an end-of-night edginess. Often without structure, the music was almost entirely electronic except for Henriksen’s trumpet. At times, I fell into a light sleep only to awake when the bombastic percussion and contrasting chiming notes erupted from the trio’s consoles. It wasn’t their fault; the Bijou seats are comfortable.

From the Bijou we emerged to a quiet Knoxville, the crowds that cruised Gay Street throughout the festival vanished. This silence treated the ears a little more kindly. But days after Supersilent’s final jarring notes, I find myself a little more respective of the off-the-cuff approach.