Bristol, UK’s Tara Clerkin Trio first came to our attention last year when they received an invitation from the Big Ears Festival to play its 2025 edition, and, upon listening to their 2023 EP On the Turning Ground as a means of introduction, we were immediately smitten. Members Tara Clerkin, Pat Benjamin, and Sunny-Joe Paradiso have synthesized elements of minimalism, dub, and more traditionally melodic genres to create sounds that are simultaneously patient, intimate, and seductive. Hear how songs by Casino Versus Japan, Frederic Galliano, and Durutti Column were formative for them. They’ll be playing this year’s Big Ears Festival on Friday, March 27, 2026.

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While to the casual observer it might seem as if New Zealand’s The Beths appeared seemingly out of nowhere in or around the summer of 2023, they’ve in fact been making their extremely catchy brand of indie pop for almost ten years now. The Auckland-based quartet’s most recent album, Straight Line is a Lie, was released last year by Anti-. We spoke to founding members Liz Stokes and Jonathan Pearce for this episode in which they talk about how songs by Rilo Kiley, Ben Folds Five, and The Shins--among others--were formative for them.

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Colombia-born singer and musician Lucrecia Dalt began her musical career seemingly suddenly, at least when observed from a distance as a simple biographical factoid: as a civil engineer, she worked in a geotechnical company until giving it up to become a musician. While the exact details of that situation are likely considerably more nuanced, it nevertheless serves as a metaphor for her ambitious and ever-forward artistic inclinations. This is particularly true in her 2021 collaboration with Aaron Dilloway, Lucy & Aaron, which took her work deeper into more fragmented, abstract territory. She continues on this path with her newest release, A Danger to Ourselves, which was released in late 2025. On this episode, she talks about how songs by Rocio Durcal, PJ Harvey, and David Sylvian informed her sensibilities. Dalt will perform at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN in March of 2026.

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Bassist Melvin Gibbs has played on many seminal records you’re very familiar with, and likely many you aren’t, almost 200 in total. Some of his better-known work includes playing with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, guitarist Sonny Sharrock, as well as Rollins Band, and Arto Lindsay. Although having played in stylistically varied projects, there is one constant among all them, which is Gibbs’ palpable presence, as he’s not a typical “session” player or one to recede into the background. Regardless of the project, his passion, precision, and distinctive, extremely musical playing stand out. Gibbs will appear as part of the Electrical Field of Love project featuring his group Harriet Tubman & Georgia Anne Muldrow at the 2026 Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN. On this episode, he talks about how songs by Undine Smith Moore, Les Tambours de Brazza, and 67 guided his musical course.

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Through his work in Uncle Tupelo and Wilco, Jeff Tweedy has played a significant role in the shaping of Americana and alternative rock since the early 90’s. The title of Uncle Tupelo’s highly influential first album, No Depression, both spawned a resurgence in music more widely described as “Americana,” as well as gave it its name. Later in his career, Tweedy and Wilco collaborated with Billy Bragg on the Mermaid Avenue records that featured lost lyrics by Woody Guthrie, released the groundbreaking album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and put a total of 12 band and four solo records, four books, and helped establish the bi-annual Solid Sound Festival in western Massachusetts. Hear how how songs by Meat Puppets, Neil Young, and Blondie charted his musical course. Tweedy’s newest work, a triple record titled Twilight Override, was released on September 26, 2025.

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Adrian Sherwood is known for his work as a producer, and while that term brings to mind those who simply put their often-subtle imprint on the recordings in which they’re involved, Sherwood’s approach is distinctive and heavily informed by the Dub music which he worked to distribute and to play as a DJ in London in the 1970’s. He has brought that sensibility primarily, but not exclusively, to electronic and electronic dance music, as well as many remixes of work by bands ranging from Depeche Mode, Sinead O’Connor, Primal Scream, Coldcut, and Skinny Puppy. His most recent solo record is 2025’s The Collapse of Everything. Sherwood will perform at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN in March of 2026. In this episode, he talks about how songs by Lee Perry, Mark Stewart, and Elvis Presley guided his musical development.

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Brian Weitz, better known as Geologist from Animal Collective, is, like the other members of that band, a voracious listener of music from a huge span of eras, cultures, and geographical locations. As can be heard in both his contributions to that band as well as his solo work, it’s all left a mark, particularly in his live performances on hurdy-gurdy, which has roots in music from multiple cultures and points in history. A Philadelphia native who also has Baltimore roots, Weitz currently resides in Washington, DC, and his newest release with Doug Shaw, A Shaw Deal, is out now on Drag City. On this episode, hear how songs by Sundowners, Fennesz, and Keiji Haino influenced him as an artist.

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As a founding member and lead singer of Galaxie 500, it could be said Dean Wareham was present at the Big Bang of American indie/alternative/college rock in the 80’s. The band spawned both a large fanbase as well as a nascent movement that embraced the same sensibilities of atmospheric-yet-stripped down, heartfelt-but-self-aware, Velvet Underground-inspired music that shaped underground music for the next two-plus decades. He then moved on to found Luna, a slightly more musically accomplished successor to Galaxie 500 that carried those same sensibilities into the 21st century. Dean and Britta, the band he founded with wife and long-time collaborator Britta Phillips, released a Christmas-themed record with former Spaceman 3 frontman Sonic Boom entitled A Peace of Us in late 2024. Hear how songs by Beat Rhythm Fashion, The Feelies, and Francoise Hardy helped shape his sensibilities.

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Born and bred in Dublin, Ireland, Ian Lynch is a founding member of traditional Irish cum modernist folk band Lankum. A passionate player and supporter–as well as a keen historian–of traditional Irish music, Lynch, along with his bandmates in Lankum, bring a passionate and renewed sense of spirit to the idiom with rousing performances in which they employ traditional instruments that serve to both honor and also expand its scope. Lynch is also the creator and host of the monthly Fire Draw Near podcast and radio show which investigates Irish traditional music and song in all of its myriad forms. We spoke to Lynch live at the 2025 Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN.

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Victoria Shen (also known by her performance alias Evicshen) is a San Francisco–based sound artist, experimental music performer, and instrument-maker whose work blends tactile audioworks with visceral live performance. Her practice engages deeply with the physicality and spatiality of sound, often through custom-built electronics, analog modular synthesizers, and hybrid sculpture-instruments.

Shen is perhaps best known for pioneering “Needle Nails”—acrylic fingernails fitted with embedded turntable styluses enabling her to play multiple record grooves simultaneously. She’s also created a copper-speaker album sleeve for her debut LP Hair Birth, and hand-poured resin records with embedded found objects.

Rooted in improvisation, her live sets are described as spirited, confrontational, and intensely physical, incorporating elements like whips, saw blades, and combs to shape visceral resonance with her audience.

In this episode, here how songs by Faye Wong, Jimi Hendrix, and Lightning Bolt were formative for her.

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