Moses Sumney: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music's Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It's the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space.

If you aren't in touch with Moses Sumney's music in these times, you're doing yourself a great injustice. Much of his latest album, græ, foreshadowed current events in ways he couldn't even imagine, but his sense of humor about it is intact. "I'm performing songs off of my new album which I released in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, so that was fun," he says, "but all of the songs are about loneliness and isolation so, who's laughing now?"

His second Tiny Desk concert, recorded at his home in North Carolina, is just as stunning as his first. No matter how many instruments are assembled around the California native born to Ghanaian immigrants, his vocals almost always dominate, especially now. He told NPR contributor Jason King in an Instagram conversation ahead of this year's Pop Conference, "With this album, I was like yo, I could die any minute so let me sing all the high notes but also all the low notes and also, also, also." For his Tiny Desk (home) concert, he recreates three songs from græ and closes with 2018's "Rank and File," yet another song all too relevant in 2020.

SET LIST

• "Bless Me"
• "Me In 20 Years"
• "Polly"
• "Rank & File"

MUSICIANS

Moses Sumney: vocals, guitar, piano

CREDITS

Video by: Moses Sumney, Spencer Kelly, Josh Finck; Audio by: Ben Baptie; Producer: Bobby Carter; Audio Mastering Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Video Producer: Morgan Noelle Smith; Executive Producer: Lauren Onkey; Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann

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