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Feb. 11, 2019 | Bob Boilen -- There's a magical aura that surrounds Lau Noah as she sits behind my desk and embraces her guitar with one foot propped unnaturally high on a stool. As melodies pour from the strings, she sings these words in Spanish: "On the verge of the soul, there is a red petal, attached to the skins of mortals." A few lines later in the song she continues, "a fragile petal that drinks the water of the most cruel stories: children who have never heard a fairytale, lovers who love, dressed in regret." This is the sort of poetic tale that captured my heart amongst the thousands of entries I watched during the Tiny Desk Contest in 2018. Her song she submitted for the contest is called "La Realidad."

Lau Noah's journey as a songwriter and guitarist occurred by happenstance. She was born in Reus, Spain barely a few hours drive from Barcelona. She speaks and now sings in Catalan, Spanish, English and sometimes Hebrew. She'd played piano growing up (never guitar) and left Spain for New York City five years ago while in her late teens.

On a visit to Montreal in 2016, Lau hoped to go to a Patrick Watson concert with friends. But the performance sold out and she was left alone in an apartment while her friends went to the show. Then a snowstorm ensued. The apartment had two guitars and, with nothing else to do, she picked one up and began to play. She wrote her first song, "Pequitas," which means "Little Freckles." Now, not too many years later, her creativity on both classical guitar, her narrative poetry and the singing of that poetry make the musician Lau Noah a unique spirit.

Before she played her final song, "Red Bird," at the Tiny Desk, she quoted Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, from his novel Don Quixote: "When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies," Lau said, reading from her notes. "Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams is madness. And maddest of all: to see life as it is and not as it should be."

Lau Noah herself writes the kinds of story-songs that provoke that sort of thought, so we've included translations for you to fully enjoy her vision.

Set List
"El Jardinero (The Gardener)"
"La Realidad (The Reality)"
"L'Adéu (The Goodbye)"
"La Belleza (The Beauty)"
"Red Bird"

Credits
Producers: Bob Boilen, Morgan Noelle Smith; Creative Director: Bob Boilen; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Morgan Noelle Smith, Kimani Oletu; Associate Producer: Bobby Carter; Photo: Amr Alfiky/NPR

Sept. 13, 2017 | Bob Boilen -- Lookman Adekunle Salami, who writes and records as L.A. Salami, is a storyteller and a poet. His songs are deliberate meanderings on the mundane and the poignancy in everyday life. And in the way Bob Dylan took his guitar and harmonica to accompany his rarely repeating ramblings, L.A Salami embraces a similar aesthetic, albeit as a black Englishman instead of a white Minnesotan.

His opening song at the Tiny Desk, "Day to Day (For 6 Days a Week)," runs about six minutes, with over 600 words. He seems to rattle them all off effortlessly, with compelling, complicated rhymes that never repeat and phrases such as:

"Went to work for the NHS -

Mental health, people depressed.

Met Joanne - Scared of living,

Afraid of dying, terrified of being.

Then met Paul, a schizophrenic,

Shaking limbs, paranoid fanatic -

Unwashed 10 days in a row -

So afraid almost paralytic."

L.A. Salami released one of my favorite albums of 2016, Dancing With Bad Grammar, which was produce by Matt Ingram, known for his creative work with artists as diverse as Laura Marling and FKA Twigs. So if you have a penchant for broadside ballads, and observations of our times reflected through the mind of a brilliant songwriter, take a look at L.A. Salami.

Set List

"Day To Day (For 6 Days A Week)"

"Terrorism (The ISIS Crisis)"

"My Thoughts, They Too Will Tire"

Musician

Lookman Adekunle Salami (vocals, guitars, harmonicas)

Credits

Producers: Bob Boilen, Morgan Noelle Smith; Audio Engineers: Josh Rogosin; Videographer: Morgan Noelle Smith; Production Assistant: Jenna Li; Photo: Liam James Doyle/NPR.

For more Tiny Desk concerts, subscribe to our podcast: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510292/ti...

Sept. 12, 2017 | Jacob Ganz -- Two songs into his Tiny Desk concert, Jack Antonoff revealed a bit of stagecraft behind his performances with Bleachers.

"My manager says, 'When you play for 1,000 people, don't talk to one person. It's only cool for them,'" Antonoff said. It was offered as an apology — he had just finished aiming a monologue about the link between dancing and crying at a single NPR staffer in the audience — but it was also a perfect encapsulation of the connection Antonoff's songs create. Bleachers makes truly conversational pop, songs that sound expansive but retain a sense of intimacy, even when aimed at the masses.

At the Tiny Desk, Antonoff, along with pianist Mikey Hart and multi-instrumentalist Evan Smith, pared away much of the pomp that can turn Antonoff's layered studio productions into neon-lit melodramas rollercoastering toward catharsis. On three songs from this year's album Gone Now impeccably re-arranged for a smaller space, it was impossible to miss the cracked longing at the heart of Antonoff's work.

"If you ever see Bleachers live, it's two drum sets and it's big and it's kinda like this big statement that I could hide behind the tears with this big rock show. But the songs are written like this," Antonoff said before launching into a version of the '80s-drenched single "Don't Take The Money" that was all feathery keyboards and spoken word verses — plus a brief quote from Queen's 1984 hit "Radio Ga Ga. "

Not that he could resist a well-placed gimmick. "Don't Take The Money" was the only song of the day to include drum sounds, which came from a cassette tape in a boom box over which a microphone had been draped. He started the song by hitting play on the cassette, but it took three tries to nail the ending in time with Hart. For this group, seeing the flaws is part of the charm.

Set List

"Everybody Lost Somebody"
"Don't Take the Money"
"Foreign Girls"

MUSICIANS

Jack Antonoff (vocals, keys); Evan Smith (vocals, keys, sax); Mikey Hart (vocals, piano)

CREDITS

Producers: Bob Boilen, Morgan Noelle Smith; Audio Engineers: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Morgan Noelle Smith, Colin Marshall, Tsering Bista; Production Assistant: Jenna Li; Photo: Claire Harbage/NPR.

For more Tiny Desk concerts, subscribe to our podcast: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510292/ti...

MUSICIANS
Amelia Meath: vocals; Nick Sanborn: chord organ; Jenn Wasner: piano


CREDITS
Recorded at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, NC
Produced by Sylvan Esso
Mixed and Engineered by Jon Ashley
Mastered by Evan Bradford

VIDEO CREW
Production Company: Remedy; Director: Josh Sliffe; DP: Rob Russell; Gaffer: Brian DeContreras; Camera Operators: Rob Russell, Josh Sliffe, Brian DeContreras

http://www.sylvanesso.com
http://www.lomavistarecordings.com

Follow Sylvan Esso:
Spotify: http://found.ee/SE_Spotify-1
Facebook: http://found.ee/SE_facebook
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MUSICIANS
Matt Douglas: saxophone; Ryan Gustafson: guitar; Amelia Meath: vocals; Nick Sanborn: keys; Molly Sarle: vocals; Alexandra Sauser-Monnig: vocals; Jenn Wasner: bass; Joe Westerlund: drums

CREDITS
Recorded at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, NC
Produced by Sylvan Esso
Mixed and Engineered by Jon Ashley
Mastered by Evan Bradford

VIDEO CREW
Production Company: Remedy; Director: Josh Sliffe; DP: Rob Russell; Gaffer: Brian DeContreras; Camera Operators: Rob Russell, Josh Sliffe, Brian DeContreras

http://www.sylvanesso.com
http://www.lomavistarecordings.com

Follow Sylvan Esso:
Spotify: http://found.ee/SE_Spotify-1
Facebook: http://found.ee/SE_facebook
Twitter: http://found.ee/SE_twitter
Instagram: http://found.ee/SE_instagram
Soundcloud: http://found.ee/SE_soundcloud

Bob Boilen | Aug 2, 2017 - The high-energy blast that musicians often reserve for their finale is the starting point for Diet Cig.

The band's boundless, leaping pop is exhilarating and pleasantly exhausting to watch, with drummer Noah Bowman propelling the high kicks and constant pogo bounce of guitarist and singer Alex Luciano. With a candied voice, she sings of being on the cusp of adolescence — but underneath that bright veneer Alex sings truth to power, and about what it means to be a punk in a skirt, dealing with disrespectful souls. "I think you're the kind of guy / who would meet me at a party / and forget my name / and try to take me home all the same," she sings on "Sixteen."

These songs, which crackle like Pop Rocks — and in this case stomp, as Alex dances on my desk — retain a simple fun that makes them memorable, without undermining their gravity.

Swear I'm Good At This is available now.

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/swe...

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Swear-Im-Good-...


Set List

"Sixteen"
"Tummy Ache"
"Harvard"

Musicians

Alex Luciano (vocals, guitar); Noah Bowman (drums)

Credits

Producers: Bob Boilen, Niki Walker, Bronson Arcuri; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Niki Walker, Tsering Bista; PA: Morgan Noelle Smith; Photo: Claire Harbage/NPR.

For more Tiny Desk concerts, subscribe to our podcast.

Sept. 8, 2017 | Bob Boilen -- When I listened blindly to nearly a thousand songs while attempting to make my schedule of bands to see at this year's SXSW music festival, one of the few tracks that leapt to the top was "Arizona" by Frances Cone. I wasn't alone. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson also singled out this now Brooklyn-based band for the way it wraps its storytelling in a catchy, pop parcel.

Led by singer and songwriter Christina Cone, the band is set to release Late Riser, its second full-length album, later this year. The first track the group performed for this Tiny Desk concert is its just-released single, "Unraveling," a tale of falling apart, of life becoming so overwhelming that the song's character simply stops and lets go.

With each verse of "Unraveling" the saga builds to a climax and then a calm. It's this sort of craft that makes Frances Cone stand out. Think Lucius, another band that captured my attention years ago for similar reasons. In fact, Dan Molad, the drummer and producer for Lucius, mixed that first Frances Cone song that grabbed my attention, "Arizona." This is wonderfully literate pop that won't hit you over the head, but might gently find a home in your heart.

Set List

"Unraveling"
"Arizona"
"Leave Without You"

Musicians

Christina Cone (keys, vocals); Andrew Doherty (electric bass, electric guitar, vocals); Adam Melchor (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals); Alex Baron (drums)

Credits

Producers: Bob Boilen, Niki Walker, Morgan Noelle Smith; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Niki Walker, Tsering Bista; PA: Jenna Li; Photo: Claire Harbage/NPR.

For more Tiny Desk concerts, subscribe to our podcast: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510292/ti...