Bright Eyes was the latest act to perform in the quarantine-edition of NPR Music‘s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert series. The Connor Oberst-led project played a sampling of songs from its latest album, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was, as well as a 2011 throwback.
Last month, Bright Eyes released its first album in nearly a decade as Oberst reconvened with multi-instrumentalists Mike Mogis and Nathaniel Walcott. The album has since drawn critical acclaim and rose to number 36 on the Billboard 200 chart.
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Opening with the lead single from Down in the Weeds, “Mariana Trench“, viewers find Oberst and Mogis performing together at ARC Studios in Omaha, Nebraska. Meanwhile, Walcott sits nearly 1,500 miles away at the Los Angeles recording studio Lucy’s Meat Market joined by Becky Stark (Lavender Diamond) on backup vocals, along with their daughter.
The in-studio nature of Bright Eyes’ Tiny Desk (Home) Concert allows for an added emphasis on the band’s instrumentalism. Whereas usually the predominant focus is on Oberst’s lyrics—and it still is to a certain degree—now attention is paid to subtleties like the pedal steel on the opening “Mariana Trench”.
Almost on queue the group’s next song, “Pan and Broom”, features a Marxophone—a name this writer only knows because Oberst introduces the instrument prior to the performance. One of the most prominent features of Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was is the dense instrumentation provided by Mogis and Walcott. Especially when taken in conversation with the solo work and Better Oblivion Community Center record Oberst put out with Phoebe Bridgers, Bright Eyes’ latest studio offering goes so much further than depression-inspiring lyrics and instead puts a proper spotlight on talented musicians. This Tiny Desk performance allows those artists, who were perhaps underutilized before, to fully flourish.
After a requisitely-dour run through “Persona Non Grata”, the band threw things back a bit with a selection from the last Bright Eyes album before the nine-year break—2011’s The People’s Key—with “Shell Games”. Put in context beside the band’s most recent album, “Shell Game” is reminiscent of the earlier, much more Oberst-focused music. The input from Mogis and Walcott is minimal and fairly subdued, giving it that classic low fi feel of a lyric-focused Bright Eyes song.
Watch Bright Eyes perform for NPR Music’ Tiny Desk (Home) Concert series.
Bright Eyes – Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
[Video: NPR Music]
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