Bob Boilen

After receiving over 6,000 entries this year, we've picked a winner of the 2019 Tiny Desk Contest. Meet the gifted songwriter who captivated our panel of judges.

Joe Talbot, frontman for the British punk group IDLES, talks about Joy as an Act of Resistance, how Van Morrison's Astral Weeks changed his life and his tips for driving across Kansas while on tour.

These classically trained artists fill the NPR Music offices with shrieking, rhythmic noise that redefines what an electric guitar can do.

The musician won our hearts with his deeply moving 2018 Tiny Desk contest entry as Bernie and The Believers. He'd been fighting bulbar-onset ALS, an aggressive form of Lou Gehrig's disease.

This week's All Songs Considered explores the more drastic ends of the song spectrum, from cotton-candy pop to raging punk sung in Farsi.

Laraaji is best known to some for his ambient work with Brian Eno in the late '70s. He brings his meditative calm to the Tiny Desk in this hypnotic performance.

This week we've got a love song from Kate Tempest, music made in a hotel from Japanese Breakfast, a near-perfect pop-punk heartbreaker by Mannequin Pussy and more.

The indescribable New Orleans band fulfills both its vision and creates something beyond its imagination.

Tiny Desk alums Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers surprised us all with their stunning collaboration this year as Better Oblivion Community Center. Together they radiate joy at the desk.

The singer reveals the stories behind his new album, Oh My God and shares some of the songs by other artists that inspired him to take his sound in a refreshing direction.

The music of Theodore is dark and transformative, with the kind of spare elegance you can hear in Sigur Rós or Pink Floyd.

This week we've got wild and wonderful new music from Tank and the Bangas, a message of unity from singer Jesca Hoop (with Lucius), the mysterious voice of Sevdaliza and more.

There's a beauty buried deep inside these lazy and woodsy songs just waiting for you to dig them out.

After a few months taking care of his newborn, NPR Music's Lars Gotrich is back with buzzing Ethiopian hymns and Tuareg folk songs, but also white-hot psych-rock and a modular synth frenzy.

It was a day when sunlight drenched the office and the songs of heart from Courtney Marie Andrews felt right at home.

This week's essential playlist includes Chastity Belt singer Julia Shapiro on her first solo album, Portishead's Beth Gibbons singing with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and more.

Jesse Mac Cormack's song "Give a Chance," follows humans making their way across the ordeals of life — with rope as a metaphor — towards that proverbial light that everyone tries to have in them.

At 83, reggae king Lee "Scratch" Perry has just made a brilliant record. Hear that, plus the daydreamy music of Radiator Hospital, the astonishing sounds of The Comet Is Coming and more.

Philadelphia Rapper Chill Moody and singer Donn T, along with their crew known as &More, were one of the standout entrants in last year's Tiny Desk Contest. They bring a message of hope and love.

The Tuareg musician may have just made the most insane psychedelic guitar album of the 21st century.