Ada Lea: 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. Marissa Lorusso | May 24, 2022 Ada Lea’s Tiny Desk (home) concert opens just as her 2021 album, one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden, does: with the careening, beautiful track “damn.“ It’s the story of a turbulent New Year’s Eve party, told through songwriter Alexandra Levy’s stream-of-conscious delivery. Here, she and her band lean into the song’s slowly simmering tension and frustration, ending on an extremely close shot of Levy’s expressive face in the song’s final moments. As Ada Lea, Levy excels at writing observational, artful indie rock; one hand..., her sophomore album, feels like a companion for driving around a city you know well and feeling a pang of nos