You can be 10 feet from The Campbell Apartment, a bar tucked into the corner of New York's Grand Central Station, and not have any idea it's there. The office of a member of the New York Central Railroad's Board Of Directors in the 1920s (and later a storage closet and a jail), the room is intimate in spite of its 25-foot ceilings and the enormous leaded-glass window that faces Vanderbilt Avenue. For the decade it's been making music, the English band Wild Beasts has been touched by a similar antiqueness. It's not retro; more like a feeling that some element of the band's sound — from the street-urchin-inspired lyrics of its early songs to the new-wave synths woven through its latest album, Present Tense — arrived fully intact via time machine. Over four albums, Wild Beasts songs have remained focused on love, sex and the power struggle often created when the two are paired. By this measure, the relationship in "A Simple Beautiful Truth" is serene and straightforward. "Woman, we don't need to pretend anymore," Hayden Thorpe sings. "Simple, beautiful love is worth countless triumphs when it's real." Amid the rush and confusion of the outside world, that's a truth that lasts.-JACOB GANZ SET LIST "A Simple Beautiful Truth" CREDITS Producers: Mito Habe-Evans, Jacob Ganz; Videographers: Mito Habe-Evans, Colin Marshall, A.J. Wilhelm, Jacob Ganz; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Special Thanks: The Campbell Apartment, Mark and Rachel Dibner of the Argus Fund; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann Subscribe to NPR on YouTube: youtube.com/npr Follow NPR elsewhere, too: • Twitter: twitter.com/npr • Facebook: facebook.com/NPR • Instagram: instagram.com/npr/ • Tumblr: npr.tumblr.com/ • Snapchat: snapchat.com/add/npr ABOUT NPR NPR connects to audiences on the air, on demand, online, and in person. More than 26 million radio listeners tune in to NPR stations each week and more than 36 million unique visitors access NPR.org each month making NPR one of the most trusted sources of news and insights on life and the arts. NPR is also the leading publisher of podcasts, with 36 original shows and an average of 4 million listeners per week. NPR shares compelling stories, audio and photos with millions of social media users on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and Snapchat; NPR News and NPR One apps, online streaming, podcasts, iTunes radio and connected car dashboards help meet audiences where they are. NPR's live events bring to the stage two-way conversations between NPR hosts and the audience in collaboration with the public radio Member Station community. This robust access to public service journalism makes NPR an indispensable resource in the media landscape.
