- Geese has just unveiled its very first Tiny Desk Concert, recorded in December 2025 at NPR's offices.
- The Brooklyn band performed three tracks from its acclaimed album Getting Killed: “Husbands,” “Cobra,” and “Half Real.”
- Following their appearance on Saturday Night Live in January 2026, this performance confirms the quartet's meteoric rise.
- A live album, Geese: Live at Third Man Records, will be released on February 27, 2026, followed by appearances at Coachella, Governors Ball, and Bonnaroo.
We’re used to keeping a close eye on musical UFOs, and when we saw the Geese Tiny Desk land in our news feed yesterday, we gave each other the same look we had the first time we heard “Trinidad” — a mix of fascination and “what is this amazing thing?”
Since the release of Getting Killed in September 2025, the Brooklyn quartet has been on a trajectory no one can ignore: an appearance on Saturday Night Live, coverage in Rolling Stone, GQ, and now this Tiny Desk Concert, which seals their status as the most exciting band on today’s rock scene. Let’s take a closer look at this intimate performance, which confirms everything we think of these New Yorkers.
Geese: from a Brooklyn basement to the biggest stages
For those just discovering them, Geese is an indie rock band formed in Brooklyn in 2016, when its members were still in high school. Cameron Winter (vocals, guitar), Emily Green (guitar), Dominic DiGesu (bass), and Max Bassin (drums) came together within the walls of Brooklyn Friends School with one simple goal: make music by any means possible.
Their first sessions? Sneakers used as mic stands and blankets draped over amps in Max Bassin’s basement. Since then, their journey has been dizzying: a debut album, Projector (2021), released through Partisan Records after a bidding war between labels; the art-rock turn of 3D Country (2023); then the breakthrough with Getting Killed in 2025.
Tiny Desk Concert: three songs, zero wrong notes
Recorded in December 2025 at NPR Music’s offices in Washington, this Tiny Desk Concert marks the band’s first appearance in the iconic series. The program: three tracks from Getting Killed, their album that has drawn unanimous critical praise.
The setlist:
- “Husbands” — a delicate, poignant opening
- “Cobra” — building momentum with livelier energy
- “Half Real” — an emotional closer, a song that hits you in the gut
The Tiny Desk Concert is an iconic format launched by NPR Music in 2008. The concept: an artist performs an intimate mini-concert behind a desk, without any of the usual stage trappings. Some of the most memorable performances include those by Mac DeMarco, Anderson .Paak, Tyler, the Creator, and Adele. It is often a mark of recognition for an emerging artist.
Where many bands opt for acoustic arrangements during Tiny Desk performances, Geese kept its setup entirely electric, staying true to its usual live configuration. But with a restraint and command that reveal another side of the band. Seated with guitar in hand, Cameron Winter delivers radiant, soulful vocals, far removed from the record’s feverish intensity. Emily Green shines with sharp guitar playing that sustains the tension, while the rest of the band plays with their eyes closed, completely absorbed in the music.
The result? A performance that is both melancholic and sincere, highlighting the quieter moments of Getting Killed. As NPR puts it: this is the band in its purest form.
Getting Killed: the breakout album that changed everything
It is impossible to talk about this Tiny Desk without looking back at Getting Killed, released on September 26, 2025 via Partisan Records. This fourth studio album was recorded in just ten days at Kenny Beats’ Putnam Hill studio in Los Angeles, with fourteen-hour workdays as the California wildfires filled the air with smoke and ash.
The result is a record described as a “chaotic comedy”: garage riffs overlap with samples of Ukrainian choirs, drum machines whistle behind shrieking guitars, and lullabies sit alongside furious experimentation. The album landed on numerous best albums of 2025 lists, with Stereogum even naming it its album of the year.
The full tracklist:
- Trinidad
- Cobra
- Husbands
- Getting Killed
- Islands of Men
- 100 Horses
- Half Real
- Au Pays du Cocaine
- Bow Down
- Taxes
- Long Island City Here I Come
2026: the year of the full-blown explosion?
This Tiny Desk Concert is part of a series of milestones that have propelled Geese to the status of “band of the moment”, as Stereogum calls them. Here is a quick recap of their recent trajectory:
- November 2025: first band to appear on Nigel Godrich’s From the Basement series in nearly three years
- January 2026: Saturday Night Live debut with “Au Pays du Cocaine” and “Trinidad”
- January 2026: cover of New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” on BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge
- February 2026: this Tiny Desk Concert, followed by a world tour (Australia, Japan, Europe...)
- February 27, 2026: release of Geese: Live at Third Man Records, a live album recorded direct-to-acetate
- Summer 2026: scheduled to play Coachella, Governors Ball, and Bonnaroo
And as if that were not enough, rumors point to a possible concert film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and Benny Safdie. Nothing less.
If you want to discover Geese live before listening to them on record, start with their Tiny Desk Concert, then follow it up with the live album Alive & In Person (2024) and the upcoming Live at Third Man Records. This is a band that takes on a completely different dimension onstage, with arrangements reworked for every performance.
Why Geese matters (really)
They are often compared to the Strokes, Radiohead, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and British Windmill scene bands such as Black Midi and Squid. But Geese has a particular knack for digesting all its influences and spitting out something radically personal. Their sound blends indie rock, art rock, post-punk, and experimental rock, all carried by Cameron Winter’s singular voice — capable of shifting from restrained crooning to feverish vocal outbursts in the space of a verse.
Barely in their twenties, these musicians already have four studio albums under their belts and an artistic maturity that leaves you speechless. Their approach — record fast, play loud, never repeat themselves — recalls an era when rock was built on urgency and instinct. As Cameron Winter summed it up with his deadpan humor in a recent airport interview: “The indie complex is using us as its flagship product right now. Why us? No idea.”
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A Tiny Desk for the history books
With this Tiny Desk Concert, Geese proves it does not need volume or chaos to captivate. By choosing the gentlest songs from Getting Killed, the band reveals the emotional depth hidden behind the intensity of its record. It is a display of maturity and musical chemistry between artists who have been playing together for nearly a decade — and who are clearly only at the beginning of their story. What comes next looks exciting.
