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NPR Music obtained almost 6,000 entries to this 12 months’s Tiny Desk Contest, the annual seek for the subsequent nice undiscovered artist to play a Tiny Desk live performance. However one Springville, Utah, band rose to the highest as its entry shocked the judges, moved them to tears and stuffed them with hope.
At this time, we’re thrilled to announce Little Moon is the winner of the 2023 Tiny Desk Contest.
That is Little Moon’s fourth 12 months coming into the Contest, an actual testomony to by no means giving up. Little Moon’s entries have impressed Contest judges since 2020, however this 12 months, the band leveled up — and the judges seen. Albina Cabrera of NPR Member station KEXP shared the band’s profitable entry, “Marvel Eye,” as one among her favorites on High Shelf final month, noting its highly effective message and applauding singer Emma Hardyman’s distinctive voice and the togetherness of the whole band. A couple of weeks later, when all of the judges got here collectively to resolve on a winner, the choice to crown Little Moon was unanimous. “Emma’s deceptively robust voice, and the band’s skill to take the music to locations utterly sudden, catapulted ‘Marvel Eye’ to the highest of the heap of great entries,” mentioned Tiny Desk collection producer Bobby Carter. Singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten mentioned Hardyman’s vocal vary was “out of this world.” Collection creator Bob Boilen shared: “The track is a dynamic and explosive tune with a deeply emotional story.”
Emma Hardyman instructed us the track was written beneath heavy circumstances: Her mother-in-law was in hospice care, whereas she and her husband, bassist Nathan Hardyman, have been within the technique of leaving the Mormon church. “Mormonism believes in life after demise, resurrection and everlasting households,” she mentioned. “There may be magnificence and luxury in our former beliefs of certainty, mild and life; we honor and respect such teachings. However we additionally discover deep magnificence in uncertainty, darkness, chaos and demise. Maybe it is all one and the identical.”
She added: “Maybe this track was written as a result of we realized we now have been mourning varied deaths our complete lives. … Maybe it took a significant, bodily demise of a beloved one to see that demise is going on on a regular basis — that we’re at all times grieving one thing, that accepting the mysterious, shadowy nature of demise can deepen one’s sense of humanity and soften the methods we see ourselves and one another.” You may hear extra from Hardyman this afternoon, when she’ll do her first NPR interview because the Contest winner on All Issues Thought-about.
Quickly, Little Moon — Emma and Nathan Hardyman, plus keys participant Bly Wallentine, harpist Bridget Jackson, drummer Chris Shemwell and electrical guitarist Grace Johnson — will play a Tiny Desk live performance at NPR’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. And in June, the band will headline the annual Tiny Desk Contest On The Highway tour, enjoying alongside native Contest entrants (quickly to be introduced) throughout the nation. You will get tickets for the tour at NPRPresents.org.
