Katy Kirby: Tiny Desk Concert

Elle Mannion | August 26, 2024 Texas-born Katy Kirby has a talent for creating songs that start quietly — so tenderly that the listener almost feels like they’re eavesdropping on a personal conversation — then build with intricate arrangements before returning to that intimacy. It’s that sort of dynamism, paired with Kirby’s clear voice and distinctive lyrical imagery, that really shine in her Tiny Desk performance. Kirby begins with “Juniper,” a swinging hit from her debut album Cool Dry Place, followed by “Fences,” off her latest album Blue Raspberry. On “Cubic Zirconia,” after an instrumental break led by Logan Chung’s electric guitar riffs, the band fades as Kirby sings to “the prettiest mermaid in the souvenir shop,” describing a “face framed by hoodie like an oyster in a shell.” Kirby then plays a stripped back version of the usually roaring “Table” before ending with the arresting “Portals,” a song Kirby told us tends to make her girlfriend tear up. Also, you may notice that the “wooh