In case you missed their great set this summer at Soho, Portland’s Hosannas’ summertime performances on The Noise Coalition Sessions have just been released.  Check the magical vocal realism and instrumental acumen below.  We know the Laws brothers have been busy on other projects (Aan) recently, but we look forward to the next Hosannas record project and visit to Santa Barbara.

Hosannas members:
Richard Laws: voice, electronics, piano
Brandon Laws: voice, guitar, synth
Joe Castor: voice, guitar
Andrew Miller: voice, keyboards
Jon Lewis: drums

Following up on Wilco’s performance of Dawned on Me at Studio Q, Studio Q has just released the video below of the band performing I Might.  Both songs are from their new album, The Whole Love.  Check out I Might below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNxhbdPx7Sc

Following on the heals of Paul Simon’s phenom Santa Barbara Bowl show just over a week ago, check out below his performance last night of his lovely song, Love is the Eternal Sacred Light, courtesy of the Audio Perv.

The fantastic Fruit Bats and rising Parson Red Heads are playing Sunday at Soho as part of the New Noise Festival in Santa Barbara that begins today and finishes on Sunday.  Both bands are touring in support of fine new albums.  We’ve written about both bands before, and the Fruit Bats show at Soho in 2010 was one of our Concerts of the Year. To get prepped, check out the Fruit Bat performances below and then go HERE to check out the Parson Red Heads.  It’s gonna be great.

Check out the Fruit Bats performing at a recent KEXP session in which the band performed four songs off their sparkling new album, “Tripper.” First up is So Long, then Heart Like an Orange, Dolly, and then the first single off the new album, Tangie Ray.  And then far below check out the band doing what they do incredibly well (cover songs), a cover of Loretta Lynn’s The Other Woman for an A.V. Undercover Session.

Fruit Bats cover “The Other Woman” by Loretta Lynn

As posted previously, Feist recently performed on the CBC’s 75th Anniversary show.  CBC has now posted Feist’s performances of  Pine Moon and Comfort Me.  Check her Feistness out below.  Great stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gyZHmSZPpak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blNCdIoNv8k&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Wilco showed up recently for a Studio Q Session.  Check out Tweedy, Nels and gang on the pop-ish, Dawned on Me, off of their new album, “The Whole Love,” below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py3huGqjO_0&feature=digest_wed

Music sometimes just falls out of the sky.  We were checking out The Decemberist’s Colin Meloy’s book, “Wildwood,” at Amazon when we noticed that Meloy and his illustrator wife, Carson Ellis, had included (on Amazon) a suggested music playlist for the book.  And in that list we discovered, for the first time, Sibylle Baier.  And now we can’t stop listening.

Allmusic Guide has this back story on Baier and her lone album, “Colour Green” on Orange Twin Records:

German singer/songwriter Sibylle Baier’s one contribution to the early-’70s underground folk scene was recorded in her home on an old reel-to-reel machine. Her earnest and stoic vocals, as well as her reflective compositions, were comparable to contemporaries such as Nico, Vashti Bunyan, and Anne Briggs, but the accomplished actress, painter, dancer, and seamstress chose to focus on her growing family rather than pursue a career in music. In 2004, her son lent a copy of his mother’s home recordings to Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis, who in turn saw that it found its way to Athens, GA, record label Orange Twin. Colour Green was made available to the world the following year.

Ya gotta love a mother with priorities and a son that prioritizes payback.  We have just begun to catch up on Baier’s songs, but so far they are intimate one-acts on life’s rich pageant, with lyrical depth to match.  Imagine, if you will, Sylvia Plath singing and playing nylon guitar and sounding like an early Leonard Cohen.  In short:  well worth your attention.  If you don’t know her, you can begin below by checking out her song, I Lost Something in the Hills, included in the Wildwood playlist.  And then off you go into the finite Baier world.

Terry Gross’s interview of Tom Waits was broadcast yesterday on NPR’s “Fresh Air” program.  As usual, Gross and Waits deliver the goods in gross.  Check it out.