Pygmy Lush: Tiny Desk Concert

Lars Gotrich | August 30, 2024 How rare is it for the same group of musicians to create not one but two beloved bands of the punk scene? Around the turn of the millennium, pg. 99 pushed heavy music to its most chaotic extremes, inspiring tattoos and the next generation of hardcore. Then a few members of pg. 99 started Pygmy Lush — something quieter and sweeter, though no less experimental. Pygmy Lush never broke up, life just happened; this Tiny Desk is the atmospheric folk band’s first live performance in seven years. While its catalog can get noisy, Pygmy Lush here relies on haunted campfire singalongs from 2008’s Mount Hope (“Asphalt,” “Dead Don’t Pass” and “Hard to Swallow”) and “It’s a Good Day to Hide” from its split LP with the hardcore band Turboslut. Like those records, the foundations here are simple — acoustic guitars, looped melodies, repeated phrases, hushed vocals — but its gentle swells allow small feelings to grow roots and wander. Blood and chosen family surrounds this se