The most talked-about musical performance from last night’s Tonight Show is definitely Daniel Radcliffe randomly rapping Blackalicious’ “Alphabet Aerobics.” But the best one was probably from the Kentucky singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson, whose album Metamodern Sounds In Country Music is one of the year’s great stealth cult favorites and who’s already appeared on Letterman and Conan. On The Tonight Show, Simpson, his hair freshly cut short, sounded grizzled and badass while singing the Metamodern Sounds opening track “Turtles All The Way Down.” He also kept his eyes firmly on the audience the whole time, a strong and underrated thing. (I probably wouldn’t notice if I didn’t have to take screengrabs of these things, but you wouldn’t believe how many musicians keep their eyes on the ground, even when they’re on TV.) Watch the performance below.

Metamodern Sounds In Country Music is out now. Buy or stream it at Bandcamp.