The initial music line-up for the 2017 Big Ears Festival has been announced, and featured among the artists are Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, performing the forthcoming Nonesuch Records album 50 Song Memoir, and Shye Ben Tzur and the Rajasthan Express, performing music from their 2015 Nonesuch album, Junun. The Big Ears Festival will return to venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, expanding to four days, March 23–26, 2017.

Merritt and band will perform two distinct programs of new songs—one for every year of his life—with a seven-person band playing 50 instruments from his eclectic collection. The show recounts his five decades on planet Earth, from his conception by hippies on a houseboat in St. Thomas to his current position as one of America's greatest living songwriters. The band will perform two nights, 25 songs each night.

Junun—an album from composer/musician Shye Ben Tzur, guitarist Jonny Greenwood (who will not be performing at Big Ears), and the Rajasthan Express, a group of Indian musicians—was recorded in a makeshift studio inside the 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India, with Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich. The album comprises Ben Tzur’s compositions, which feature devotional Sufi qawwal musicians who sing in Urdu as well as in his native Hebrew. "One of the most inspired releases of the year," says the Times of London. "Intriguing, sinuous, and essential listening."

Among the other performers at this year's Big Ears Festival are Wilco, Glenn Kotche, Punch Brothers guitarist Chris Eldridge with fellow guitarist Julian Lage, and composer/pianist Frederic Rzewski.

Weekend passes for the 2017 Big Ears Festival are on sale now. For tickets and all the details, visit bigearsfestival.com.