Eaux Claires 2018 tickets on sale, lineup teaser posted

The 2018 edition of Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner‘s annual Eaux Claires festival in Eau Claire, WI has just been announced, which takes place over two days, on July 6 & 7, 2018. In a lengthy blog post, Justin explained that next year’s fest (the fourth edition overall) would be an amalgamation of the fest’s past three editions. The lineup hasn’t been revealed yet, but a 30-minute long audio clip has been uploaded to the Eaux Claires website featuring snippets of songs from many artists, and other voices and cryptic sounds. Judging from the stream, fans have since speculated that artists such as Low, Kevin Morby, Moses Sumney, and Pussy Riot may appear at the festival. You can hear the full stream here, and possibly form your own conclusions about who might play.

Two-day passes are now on sale. Read Justin’s full statement:

Hello.

IV.

We’ve been talking about it. You’ve been talking about it.

IV is the sum of the I, II, and III. Although sum implies bigger. Or predictable. Or expressible [producible] [reproducible] by formula. Whereas in fact mathematics is an abstract science.

Eaux Claires was never meant to be fully understood or easily delineated. We know it has a spirit; we know it has a feel. We know we can light up the marquee with certain names and that will precipitate solid mathematics. We’re excited about the names. But we’re gonna drib and drab it out, let it flow like smoke, because we want this festival to fly or fall on feel. It’s not about the bands, it’s about the collection of art and artists reacting with the collection of you. We’re less interested in telling you what it is than you making it what it becomes.

This is not the comfortable way of doing things. This is not an algorithm leading to a rocket ride. These are roots reaching for who knows quite what. But we’re gonna reach.

We also know we have to drape the experience on a structure. Pay the bills. Hit certain marks. Without a skeleton, we collapse. So of course there are tickets. A few of them right here, right now. More will be available in time. And more details, as well. But the most important detail you already know. The most important detail is you. You: willing to walk into a mix of art and sound and big and small and through the abstract science of the benevolent crowd, turn it into Eaux Claires.

Turn it into IV.

Last year’s Eaux Claires fest featured a star-studded lineup, with Paul Simon, Wilco, Chance The Rapper, Danny Brown, Feist, and Perfume Genius among those who performed. Pictures and recaps are here.