Tiny Desk Concerts - Video

When he was 20, Ásgeir Trausti Einarsson released an album in Iceland, sung in Icelandic, with many of the words written by his father. Dýrð í dauðaþögn became the biggest-selling debut in Icelandic music history. A year or so later, he rerecorded that album in English under the name In The Silence, with translation help from John Grant — an American singer-songwriter (and Tiny Desk veteran) now living in Iceland. Ásgeir's voice is angelic and yearning, his songs simple and universal. At the Tiny Desk, his raw, slowed-down arrangements bring a sense of grace to what were already elegant songs. On piano, with simple guitar accompaniment from his childhood friend Julius Róbertsson, Ásgeir strips these spare tunes down even further, locating their essence in the process. It's been a wonderful year for the singer: His U.S. tour is wrapping up on the West Coast, and many in the U.S. have discovered his music in 2014. If you haven't done so yet, here's your Ásgeir moment.

The Bots' members are brothers and bandmates whose playful, catchy songs rock hard. Singer-guitarist Mikaiah Lei is 21 and drummer Anaiah Lei is 17; they made their first album when they were 15 and 12, respectively. Pink Palms is their newest and best. I hear Jimi Hendrix in The Bots' bluesy moments, both in the guitar and in Mikaiah Lei's voice, but there's also that great rock-duo punch we've heard in The White Stripes or JEFF The Brotherhood. Still, unexpected sweetness surfaces here, in a way that provides a fine counterpoint to The Bots' frenetic moments. Watch and you'll see what I mean. 

Singer Raquel Sofia has spent most of her career 20 feet from stardom as a backup singer for Juanes and Shakira. But these days, she's got her own new album and tour, leading a small band of gifted musicians. Sofia's songs are about matters of the heart — and, as you'll hear in her performance here, it's hard to believe that feeling bad can sound this good. Her music doesn't wallow; instead, it makes me want to celebrate and experience the joy and pain along with her. I hope you find a place in Raquel Sofia's music for yourself. Her voice, her songwriting and her performances more than met the expectations I had after hearing her EPs, so I don't doubt that you'll become a fan, too. 

My admiration for Jackson Browne began with his first album in 1971. I was wowed by the fact that the singer-songwriter had worked with Nico of Velvet Underground fame — his girlfriend at the time — on her first album, Chelsea Girl. He wrote one of my favorite songs on that record, "These Days." More than 40 years on, my appreciation continues to grow. Browne still writes songs with conviction and craftsmanship and careful attention to detail. At the same time, there's a perceptible loosening of attitude: His Tiny Desk Concert performance isn't perfect, his heart showing through every crack in his voice. Browne can be seen out and about in other informal settings besides this one. At the Newport Folk Festival a few years ago, you could hear him play formally and informally with Tom Morello, Conor Oberst, Dawes and more. Back home on the West Coast, he might just sit in when Sara and Sean Watkins put on theirWatkins Family Hour variety show at Largo.   This week, Jackson Browne turns 66 and releases his 14th album, Standing In The Breach. It's a record that fully captures his rare ability to mix activism with poetry: His stature allows him freedom — he's largely free of obligations — with the ability to play comfortably with musicians of his own choosing. Yet he continues to stretch, working alongside much younger players with different talents and interests, sharing his talents and finding inspiration. It's that passion for playing and exploring that brings Browne to things like the Tiny Desk Concert, an awkwardly intimate setting for such a popular performer.

Even if you've never been to a jazz concert in your life, it's likely that you've heard Ryan Keberle play trombone. He's toured with Sufjan Stevens, backed up pop stars like Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake, recorded for a Woody Allen film, played in Broadway pits and directed music for a church in Manhattan. Left to his own devices, though, Keberle likes to put himself into improvising situations. You'll see him wherever jazz musicians want trombones — read: he's in a lot of big bands — and, increasingly, leading the groups himself. He's hit upon something with his working band, a quartet called Catharsis consisting of Keberle's trombone, Michael Rodriguez's trumpet, Jorge Roeder's bass and Eric Doob's drums. That lineup indulges the intersecting parts of his tunes, but preserves the melodic through-lines and swinging undertow. Here, as on their new record, Into The Zone, they're joined by Camila Meza, who came from Chile to study guitar and applies that training to her largely wordless vocals. All five drove down from Brooklyn (well, one from Queens) just to showcase that sound for NPR Music.   You get the sense that playing for so many different audiences affects how Keberle thinks about Catharsis. Certainly, his time with Sufjan Stevens rubbed off — he leads off with a lovely arrangement of Stevens' "Sister." More generally, Keberle knows he's not going to impress anyone with complexity; he's not after any high-concept framing. He's just targeting the sweet spot where a nifty arrangement meets a solid groove, and after three songs, everyone seemed pretty satisfied at his aim.

Latino migration in the U.S. has placed people of Afro-Caribbean heritage all over the country. Bio Ritmo's heritage leads directly back to that migration — and to the sound of Fania Records, which fueled Latin dance music's transition from the big-band mambos of the 1950s to the cutting-edge sounds of 1970s New York. Bio Ritmo moves salsa music even further through stellar musicianship: crisp horn charts; a powerful rhythm section of timbales, congas and bongos; and a piano/bass combo that reminds me of the best groove masters in salsa and Latin jazz. The secret to playing salsa well is a perfect combination of chops and passion that makes listeners move their hips instinctively while looking for enough clear space to break out their favorite salsa moves. This is dance music, and Bio Ritmo has burnished its reputation on dance floors. It's a time-honored tradition: If you can't make the dancers move, then you're in the wrong genre. So move some furniture around, press play on this video, and enjoy.

There's something heartwarming about a family making music together. I'm especially sentimental when I see a father with a son, because my son and I made music in contra dance bands and Irish sessions as he grew up. Years ago, while interviewing Jeff Tweedy before a Wilco concert, I asked him if he'd made music with his kids. He told me about going to his son Spencer's preschool class and writing a tune with all the kids; "Monkey Mess" was their final creation. Now, all these years later, he and Spencer have put together 20 songs as Tweedy for a new record called Sukierae; the material is strong, personal and bare. Spencer is a great drummer who grew up playing in the basement of a Chicago bar called Lounge Ax (which his mom, Susie Miller, co-owned), and he's got a group of his own called The Blisters. The father and son usually perform together with a full-band lineup. But here at the Tiny Desk, we've stripped it down to just the men who bear the Tweedy name — and share the family bond that helps make their music together beautiful.

I've spent more time listening to Luluc's second album, Passerby, than any other album this year. It's a calming, seemingly effortless affair: a marriage of graceful singing and storytelling, with guitars and textures that help create an unforgettable aura.The voice and acoustic guitar belong to Zoë Randell, while bandmate Steve Hassett contributes all the remaining sounds. Both are Australian, though these days they split their time between Melbourne and Brooklyn. I might have missed this album — as I did its 2008 predecessor — had it not been for Joe Boyd, a brilliant record producer since the 1960s and the person who brought the world Nick Drake. In 2012, Boyd asked Luluc to perform on a Nick Drake tribute tour, which makes sense: This music is true to the late singer's spirit, and then some. 

We threw a curve ball at Justin Townes Earle. Despite his five albums full of well-loved songs, we asked him to play new material for this Tiny Desk Concert; songs we hadn't yet heard. Earle's new album Single Mothers comes out this week, and here he performs two tracks from that record: "White Gardenias," his nod to Billie Holiday, and "Burning Pictures." Based in Nashville, Earle is a strong lyricist with a father, Steve Earle, who similarly finds strength in perfectly crafted words. The younger Earle is on tour now, playing old and new songs, so here's a taste of his sharp songwriting to tide you over until he comes to your town.  

These days, Jessica Lea Mayfield is all contrasts, starting with the way she sets her wistful voice against her shimmering guitar. It's got a harder edge to it than the rootsier music of her past. Then there's that cotton-candy hair and all the glitter; her guitar glitters, her eyes glitter, her shoes glitter. It's easier to talk about what isn't glittered — and mostly that'd be her lyrics. In the final song from both her album Make My Head Sing... and this Tiny Desk Concert, "Seein* Starz," she starkly sings: When it's just us two in the dark You've got a stranglehold On my heart   When she speaks of her unicorn-adorned guitar knobs, she sounds about 13. But then there are lines like these, from "Party Drugs": Party drugs just make us argue Don't know why they didn't used to   In those moments, you're hearing an older, hopefully wiser character. All those schisms in her sound beguile me. On the record, her songs often rock with abandon. Here, they hypnotize.

What immediately attracted me to Trampled by Turtles when I first saw the band was its speed, but the Minnesotans are about more than just blistering bluegrass. They also write beautiful, heartfelt folk-pop songs, as this Tiny Desk Concert demonstrates. All three of these tunes come from Trampled By Turtles' new eighth album, Wild Animals. Watching the band gathered around one mic seemed perfectly right.  

Sturgill Simpson doesn't fit today's common image of a country singer. When he arrived for his Tiny Desk Concert, the 36-year-old Kentucky native sauntered in sleepy-eyed, wearing jeans, a pair of old canvas tennis shoes, no socks and a well-worn button-down blue shirt, one of only two identical shirts he said he had in rotation while on tour. (He appeared a few nights later on Letterman wearing either the same garment or its twin.) Simpson's songs don't sound like what you'd expect, either: Mostly, it seems, he writes about taking drugs and drinking. Opening his Tiny Desk performance with the seemingly existential meditation "Turtles All The Way Down," Simpson tells the audience it's "about some other stuff, but mostly drugs." He follows that song with "Time After All" ("I wanna roll off the tempo, lay back and get high") and "Life Of Sin" ("Every day I'm smokin' my brain hazy ... I keep drinking myself silly") before closing with "Water In The Well," a tamer, comparatively melancholy reflection on loneliness and failed dreams. Regardless of the themes, Simpson is a force. His acoustic-guitar work in this solo performance is phenomenal, and he possesses a thundering voice that made the NPR offices shudder. "Turtles All The Way Down" and "Life Of Sin" are from this year's incredible Metamodern Sounds In Country Music,while "Time After All" and "Water In The Well" both appear on Simpson's 2013 debut, High Top Mountain. (Get it?)  

 Nickel Creek was made to sing and play around a single microphone, so a Tiny Desk Concert seemed inevitable. All it took was a reunion tour — celebrating 25 years of Nickel Creek — to make it happen. All three of the band's remarkably talented core members have been to the Tiny Desk before. Chris Thile is a veteran, having played the Tiny Desk with friend and guitarist Michael Daves, then later in the same year with Yo-Yo Ma and others in a project known as Goat Rodeo. When The Decemberistsperformed a Tiny Desk Concert, Sara Watkins was there to play her fiddle and sing. Her brother, Sean Watkins, was also at the NPR offices earlier this yearwith the marvelous singer Tom Brosseau. The trio, backed here by bassist Mark Schatz, has no equal. Nickel Creek has been doing this on and off since its members were kids, and what blows me away is the comfort and ease with which they navigate their instruments. That skill, and the creative force behind it, is a joy and a thrill to witness.  

Rodrigo Amarante has made the year's tenderest record.Cavalo is sonically rich and spare at the same time: Every instrument breathes and every sound blends, yet every moment is distinct. At Cavalo's core are heartfelt songs and Amarante's sweet, smoky voice. Amarante is from Rio de Janeiro, and these days lives in Los Angeles. You may know him from a few other projects: Rio's Los Hermanos, as well as Little Joy, which included Binki Shapiro and Strokesdrummer Fabrizio Moretti. For his Tiny Desk Concert, Amarante brought his small Harmony parlor guitar from the '30s, known lovingly as "Butter." These songs are stripped to their essence, and what you'll encounter here — and what you can't hear on Cavalo — is the warm, approachable singer's physical presence. Prepare to be drawn close to this intimate music. You'll want to crawl in bed with it.  

At 82, legendary guitarist Ernest Ranglin still plays the ska, reggae and jazz that he's championed and helped perfect for more than half a century. Ranglin was a key figure in shaping the sounds of ska — influenced by New Orleans jazz and R&B — in Jamaica in the late 1950s. But most of the world wouldn't hear of ska until producer Chris Blackwell teamed Ranglin up with a Jamaican singer named Millie Small. Together, they recorded "My Boy Lollipop," a song that became a smash at the height of Beatlemania and helped put ska and Jamaican music on the map forever.You've probably also heard Ranglin if you've seen the James Bond film Dr. No — particularly the scenes set in Jamaica. The effects of Ranglin's fluid and rhythmic playing on Jamaican music, from mento to reggae, are deep and long-lasting. But his work as a jazz artist is equally amazing, and here at the Tiny Desk he does a bit of everything, including music from his lyrical and wonderful album Bless Up. So watch as this humble, charming gentleman makes magic on guitar, with his talented young band Avila holding down the beat.