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Tiny Desk Concerts from NPR's All Songs Considered features your favorite musicians performing at Bob Boilen's desk in the NPR Music office. This is the AUDIO only archive.Are you a fancy A/V nerd and need video? Visit our new Tiny Desk Concert video channel. Eye-popping video and all of the music you've come to expect.

Death Cab For Cutie: Tiny Desk Concert

Death Cab For Cutie came as a trio: Ben Gibbard sang, Nick Harmer played bass, and we wheeled in our piano for Zac Rae. This intimate set included two new songs — including "Black Sun," the first single from their new album Kintsugi.

The album title refers to the Japanese art of reassembling broken pottery and making the breakage part of the newly formed pot. Death Cab For Cutie, a groundbreaking band formed in 1997, has gone through its own rebuilding of sorts. Chris Walla, a founding member of the band, has left, after contributing music to Kintsugi, but that's his farewell offering.

Death Cab For Cutie is still strongly defined by Gibbard's words, and that couldn't be more evident in this beautifully stark performance, which also includes "No Room In Frame" from Kintsugi, as well astwo stripped-down favorites from the past. One, "Your Heart Is An Empty Room," is from Plans, while a beautiful love song from Transatlanticism, "Passenger Seat," moistened more than a few eyes in the crowd.

Set List

  • "Black Sun"
  • "No Room In Frame"
  • "Your Heart Is An Empty Room"
  • "Passenger Seat"
  • Credits

    Producers: Bob Boilen, Maggie Starbard; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Maggie Starbard, Carlos Waters; Assistant Producer: Emily Jan; photo by Emily Jan/NPR

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.
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