Buke And Gass: Tiny Desk Concert

Set List "Your Face Left Before You" "Sleep Gets Your Ghost" "Revel In Contempt" "Medulla Oblongata"

Arone Dyer had no particular reason to be smiling so much. She wasn't feeling well. She'd lost her voice. She'd downed some organic something-or-other cure-all right before sound check. But Dyer couldn't stop smiling as she and bandmate Aron Sanchez converted everybody within earshot of Buke and Gass' Tiny Desk Concert. With their heavy homemade amps, Dyer and Sanchez are plenty loud, so their oddly catchy prog-punk anthems surely made their way down the hall from the NPR Music offices.

It's Buke and Gass' homemade quality that draws you in at first. Dyer plays a modified baritone-ukulele run through effects that squeal with delight, while Sanchez runs his guitar-bass hybrid through two amps (one for the three low-end strings, another for the treble). The junkyard-Shellac set-up is geeky, yes, and might strike a chord of novelty. But ultimately, it's hard not to be sold on the songs or this performance. (In fact, you can catch Buke and Gass on a winter tour right now.)

The duo's debut album, Riposte, just recently made NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums of 2010, and with good reason: There's unbridled creativity at play, as the speakers are joyfully pummeled with unexpected delight — exactly the way they are at this Tiny Desk Concert.