Napalm Death have become the first ever grindcore band to perform on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series. Watch below.
The UK grindcore pioneers made a recent appearance on NPR’s celebrated live series, breaking out a stacked eight-song set that went against the grain of the usual performances seen in the sessions.
Huge names have been involved over the years, including Adele, Tyler, The Creator, Weezer, Turnstile, Taylor Swift, Anderson Paak., Pulp and more. Although artists usually opt for a more stripped-back, refined performance, Napalm Death went the other way and delivered an unforgettable, intense set.
In just under 20 minutes, frontman Barney Greenway and co. rattled through live renditions of ‘Instinct Of Survival’, ‘Strong-Arm’, ‘Everyday Pox’ and more, and still had time to share their support for public broadcasting.
They ended the set with ‘You Suffer’ – the song that earned them a spot in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the shortest commercially released song ever, coming in at under two seconds.
“I’ve dipped in and out of Democracy Now! via NPR Radio for decades now to get my unvarnished yet thoughtful North American news. So when the NPR Tiny Desk thing came up, it kind of blew my tiny mind a little bit,” said the singer.
“We realised that we were going to reach far more people than usual with the TD performance, but as you might expect from Napalm Death, we were never going to temper the performance to any degree.”
Greenway added: “We hope everybody at least gets something from it, even if it’s just an understanding of musical abrasion being pushed to the nth degree. Please always support public access broadcasting in view of the ongoing relentless attacks upon it.”
The performance was curated by NPR Music producer and writer Lars Gotrich, who shared why they wanted to get the grindcore icons on the series.
“The first grindcore band at the Tiny Desk had to be the founding fathers,” Gotrich said. “I turned down or said ‘maybe later’ to so many others – that’s how important it was to me to get this right.
“There is only one Napalm Death, not only exemplary of extreme music but also what it takes to be human in what feels like an inhumane time.”
Napalm Death are far from the first act to turn heads for an unforgettable stop at the Tiny Desk Concert series. Last September, Turnstile made an appearance on the NPR show and delivered the first stage dive on the show. More recently, Amaia got people talking when she broke out a flute that looked like a folding chair.
As for other Napalm Death news, last year it was confirmed that the band had teamed up with Sonic Youth‘s Thurston Moore for a Ramones cover, and shortly before then Yard Act joined forces with the band’s Shane Embury for a live cover of Motörhead‘s hit ‘Ace Of Spades’.
The post Watch Napalm Death make grindcore history on NPR’s Tiny Desk appeared first on NME.
