Lydia Loveless: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

For 23yearold singerguitarist Lydia Loveless, gritty, countrified bluesrock is a palette broad enough to include literary drama complete with fatalistic references to the doomed French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud and a plainspoken plea for oral sex. In fact, Head and Verlaine Shot Rimbaud (both of which appear on this year s terrific Somewhere Else) pop up backtoback in this subdued but seething threesong Tiny Desk Concert, which Loveless recorded with the help of her full touring band. Loveless follows Head and Verlaine with Mile High, an even newer single (released with a cover of Kesha s Blind as a Bside) she d just put out as a 7 on Record Store Day. Taken together, the three songs performed, as Loveless notes wryly, with very little audience eye contact paint a smart, nononsense picture of a smart, nononsense talent. STEPHEN THOMPSON SET LIST Head Verlaine Shot Rimbaud Mile High CREDITS Producers: Denise DeBelius, Stephen Thompson; Audio Engineer: Kevi