Gordi: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

May 7, 2018, Stephen Thompson Australian singersongwriter Gordi Sophie Payten) has a dusky and evocative voice that usually gets enshrouded somehow: It often sounds like it s echoing down a stairwell, or else she s bathed it in vocal effects a la Imogen Heap or Gordi s occasional tourmate, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. But Payten s voice is an expressive and powerful instrument on its own, as her debut appearance behind the Tiny Desk demonstrates. Aside from a bit of looping in the strangely infectious notes that open Heaven I Know, from last year s terrific Reservoir Gordi here keeps her voice both unadorned and centered within warm, cool arrangements that include piano, acoustic guitar, pedal steel, a harmonium named Barbara, a saxophone played by Yellow Ostrich s Alex Schaaf, and more. The effect here is rawer than on Reservoir, but that s part of the point: These songs stand up to being stripped down, every time. PERSONNEL Gordi (vocals, piano, harmonium, guitar); Ben Lester (keyboards,