Unpacking Big Ears: The Return of DakhaBrakha

Generally speaking, Big Ears Saturday was a day of all jazz, although it closed with the hypnotic noise-drone of Water Damage and, earlier in the evening I saw the Ukrainian "ethno-chaos" band, DakhaBrakha. But other than that, my lineup on Saturday was all jazz. 

I've already discussed Water Damage, so let's get the latter one out of the way. DakhaBrakha played at 8:30 pm Saturday night in the beautiful Tennessee Theater (above). It wasn't an easy decision. To see them, I had to pass on the Tyshawn Sorey Trio (jazz) at the Bijou Theater, Lankum (Irish experimental) at the Mill & Mine, Helado Negro (electronic) at Jackson Terminal, and Wendy Eisenberg (improvisational) at Boyd's Jig & Reel. But such are the decisions you have to make for almost every performance at Big Ears.

The way I've come to look at it is Big Ears is a big international festival where hundreds of artists from all over the world get together for 3½ days of performance, conversation, movies, and socializing. You get to be a small part of it, taking in as much as you can, but it isn't all about you. It's bigger than that, and you should appreciate and embrace the small role you get to play, while recognizing that it isn't all a show put on just for you. 

In 2025, a small part of my small part was the opportunity to be a member of DakhaBrakha's audience.  

The one and only time I'd seen DakhaBrakha before was in Seattle (Bumbershoot) way back in 2014. I had never heard of them and was walking past their stage on my way to see some other band, some indie-rock flavor of the month. I had no intention of watching a band named "DakhaBrakha," but when I saw them take the stage with the white dresses and tall black hats, I was intrigued and stayed for their first number. I was amazed and stayed for their entire set, and still think of their performance as the stand-out set of the whole festival. I described it at the time as "Lark's Tongues in Aspect reinterpreted as a Slavic folk opera by Dirty Projectors."  

Since that time, though, our paths haven't crossed since, even though they apparently played Big Ears in 2017 (my first time at the festival was 2018). The Bumbershoot performance in 2014 was right after Russia had invaded and annexed Crimea, and it seemed only appropriate to see them 10½ years later and in year three of Ukraine's ongoing war with Russia after Putin attempted to take the whole of the country in 2022. 

Although their music is still much the same (which is a good thing), they've seemingly come to embrace their role as Ukraine's good-will ambassadors to the world. They made several appeals to support their country, both in morale and financially, to thunderous applause and even auctioned a painting to raise money for the troops. Most of the time, the video projection behind them showed animations based on Marko Halanevych's artwork, but it also included photos and videos of Ukrainian soldiers and people, slogans, and even a QR code for a site to donate money to the cause. But mostly, they focused on their strange and beguiling music.

Overall, it was a slicker and more professional presentation than what I saw in 2014, which is only to be expected for any band after 10+ years.    

It's not my intention to do a single post on every other set I saw at Big Ears this year, but this one seemed to warranted its own discussion and description. We'll go back to the day-long reviews soon.