Bartees Strange Slashes Through ‘Horror’ Cuts For ‘Tiny Desk Concert’

Bartees Strange continues making the rounds supporting his new album Horror with a Tiny Desk Concert. The singer-songwriter and guitarist delivered four cuts off the Jack Antonoff-co-produced record for the NPR performance series.

The Tiny Desk release follows Bartees Strange’s performance of Horror track “Backseat Banton” on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week. That song was left off the setlist for Bartees’ Tiny Desk play, with the guitarist and his band — Graham Richman (guitar, piano, keys), TK Johnson (drums), Daniel Kleederman (guitar) and John Daise — opening up the performance with album single “Wants Needs.”

Read an excerpt from NPR Music writer/producer Lars Gotrich’s rundown of the set:

Every song in this set comes from Horror, his third in a series of genre-agnostic albums that increasingly just sound like Bartees Strange and only Bartees Strange. His band gives a leaner and meaner version of “Wants Needs,” featuring a toy megaphone and whirring tape loops. “That’s the ripper,” I tell him beforehand, to which he responds, “They’re all rippers, man.” No lies detected. “Sober” has all of the power of an us-against-the-world Fleetwood Mac jam sung loudly from an old car, windows rolled down. “Too Much” swaggers so hard that, after a smooth funk break to rap, the band brings back the riff, but louder — you could feel the room vibrate.

Gotrich also spoke with Bartees following the performance about his Tiny Desk closer, “17.”

“As you get older, you have these moments where you just have no idea what’s going on and you’re completely lost,” Strange said of the Horror ballad. “This song reminds me that I’ve been here before and there’s always a cool thing that happens after.”

Watch Bartees Strange’s Tiny Desk Concert below:

Catch Bartees Strange live. Scroll down for his tour routing and ticket info.