Once you're able to see this three-song set by the band Johnnyswim, NPR Music will have published exactly 350 Tiny Desk Concerts — so we've developed a pretty good sense of when a set will stick in our memories for a while. We intuited, for example, that Adele was about to become a dominant force shortly after she breezed into our offices. (Okay, that didn't exactly require psychic powers, but still.) In the case of Johnnyswim, the prevailing sense boiled down to, "Boy, we haven't heard the last of them."
Impossibly telegenic and charming, husband and wife Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano — who formed their band in Nashville before relocating to L.A. — have the booming voices of great street buskers, but also the polished sparkle of natural-born stage performers. Sudano is the daughter of the late Donna Summer, with whom she used to sing backup, but Johnnyswim's story isn't one of nepotism or overnight success; the two have been at this together for nearly a decade, and they've got the grandiose impeccability to prove it.
In this set, the lovely ballad "Falling for Me" is bookended by songs that could be airdropped onto half the shows on television; if you're hearing them here for the first time, don't be surprised if it's your first exposure of many. Johnnyswim opens this session with "Home" — a sweet rouser that could easily follow in the footsteps of other recent hits with that title — and closes it with a full-band reading of what promises to be its signature song, the title track from the new Diamonds. As Sudano notes here, the song has morphed into "an anthem to ourselves to keep ourselves encouraged." For Johnnyswim, such pep talks won't likely be necessary for long. --STEPHEN THOMPSON
Set List
"Home"
"Falling For Me"
"Diamonds"
Credits
Producers: Bob Boilen, Denise DeBelius; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Denise DeBelius, Faith Masi, Olivia Merrion; photo by Jim Tuttle/NPR
