Psychic Hotline’s Field Guide to Big Ears 2026

We’re headed down to this year’s Big Ears Festival in Knoxville (March 26-28, 2026), and the sheer density of talent on the lineup has us buzzing. With so many boundary-pushing artists, one-off collaborations, and can’t-miss moments packed into a single weekend, we’ve been comparing notes and circling our must-sees. Rather than attempt the impossible (seeing everything), we’ve narrowed in on the sets that feel truly unmissable – the performances we’re planning our days around.

Keep scrolling to see which artists and collaborations the staff of Psychic Hotline is most excited to catch.

Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick at First Presbyterian Sanctuary
Thursday, March 26, 2026 | 7:45 PM

In my opinion, the collaborative set by Mary Lattimore and Julianna Barwick at Big Ears is genuinely one of THE most exciting events on the schedule!! I’ve been obsessed with their (recently released) first full collaborative album, Tragic Magic, which was co-produced with Trevor Spencer. This project grew from an intense, emotional nine-day recording residency in Paris using rare instruments like antique harps and classic synthesizers. If you’ve heard Barwick’s solo sets (where her vocal loops build rich, sacred-like sound layers) and Lattimore’s harp work (which can feel insanely cinematic) imagine those combined…. Yeah, just wow. Can’t freakin wait. 🥲 – Morgan Schaffner

Chuck Johnson at St John’s Cathedral
Thursday, March 26, 2026 | 10:45 PM

My introduction to Chuck’s music was as a plucky young DJ at WXYC-Chapel Hill in the mid-2000s. As the host of the “Backyard BBQ” North Carolina local music show, I was digging through the stacks and exploring the previous decade’s plethora of underrated guitar-based indie rock bands, represented nationally by Superchunk and Archers of Loaf, but consisting of many others that Could Have Been Just As Big. Chuck’s bands Spatula and Shark Quest fit this bill, and were fast favorites at the time. Fast forward to the 2020 pandemic when I (like many others) was leaning into healing, patient, ambient and instrumental music as a salve for the hard times, and Chuck’s 2017 album Balsams was in near daily rotation. It took me a while to realize it was the same Chuck Johnson, with steel pedal guitar being the primary instrument. But the same exploration of pushing an instrument to fascinating limits is present in all of his work. I’ve never seen him live, so I’m looking forward to this set in St. John’s Cathedral which I’m sure will be a transcendent experience given his last few exceptionally beautiful records… – Will Hackney

Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes at First Presbyterian Sanctuary
Friday, March 27, 2026 | 1:15 PM

The Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes record has been on constant rotation for me since it came out last year. I’ve been a big fan of music that all three of these folks have been making on their own or with other projects for years. They are each very different players whom I think of as having very distinct and tasteful harmonic signatures of their own, but what surprised me the most about the record was the nuance in which all three affix to one another. The throughlines each of them carve through the modern progressive Los Angeles music scene are on full display; the way they’re able to finish each other’s phrases or create little incidental moments that totally change the nature of the piece I find incredibly exciting and moving. I’m very pumped to just show up to this set as a fan and see what happens! – Martin Anderson

Go Kurasawa at Barley’s
Friday, March 27, 2026 | 12:15 AM

The first time I saw Go’s previous band Kikagaku Moyo live I transcended. Kikagaku Moyo is my Grateful Dead. When they disbanded, I was so happy to see that Go released his own solo album “soft shakes.” The record’s title says it all. To put this record on is to be delighted in soft unexpected ways. I love the playful piano and more ambient experimentations he’s taken. It’s solo driven, peace driven. He’s jamming by himself somewhere green and enjoying the shit out of it. I’m kicking myself for not purchasing the record from Go’s label Guruguru Brain while I still could. Now its Sold Out and the best place to keep that musical high alive is to watch him live. – Angie Lin

Gwenifer Raymond at Barley’s
Saturday, March 28, 2026 | 12:00 PM

Guitar music is SO back …sorta?

Welsh Primitive is what Raymond calls her refreshingly non-precious approach to guitar soli, inspired (improbably) by Nirvana (Unplugged) in its nascence, Raymond’s style pushes the solo guitar music of the Fahey-acolyte Old Guard into a wholly otherworldly outpost of occult Albion vibes. Far out but still firmly rooted. On my global map of pickers, Gwenifer Raymond is a perfect British counterpart to the great Marisa Anderson, who shares an uncanny ability to synthesize an impossible range of traditions and influences into a totally enrapturing performance. – Devon Tuttle

Hayden Pedigo at The Standard
Saturday, March 28, 2026 | 2:45 PM

(Honorable mention) If you’ve read this far then surely you’re hip to Hayden Pedigo as well. Building from a foundation of solo guitar, but with an irreverent wit, he weaves immersive, introspective, yet sweepingly cinematic excursions into the blissful expanses of outsider American music (dare I say pastoral kosmische? Well… I did).

Big recommend for fans of our beloved Psychic Hotline alum William Tyler (you can find him in the lineup too, but I’ve surely exceeded my character limit). ☮️ – Devon Tuttle

PS – Check out the list of artists from Psychic Hotline and The Glow Mgmt performing at the fest, and be sure to stop by Psychic Hotline booth the Big Ears record fair!

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