Diane Cluck: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

When a performer has an exceptional night, we sometimes say he or she left it all on stage the it being effort, energy, passion, sweat. To close a concert with a raw throat and a rumpled appearance signifies full disclosure, proof that the person on stage has held absolutely nothing back. Diane Cluck s performances, at their best, take a nearopposite approach: unfolding melodies of winding complexity without the barest hint of strain or struggle. A rich 15year recording career precedes this year s Boneset, as thrilling a showcase of Cluck s clawed, counterintuitive fingerpicking and elastic voice as anything she s ever released. Witnessing the same process live, however, jams the senses it s almost easier to imagine some tiny spirit in her chest is controlling the action, turning a pitch wheel with one hand and a tone knob with the other. In three songs at the Tiny Desk (two from Boneset and a sparkling new piano number, Grandma Say ) she broke focus only once, to answer a question as she strapped