The Innocence Mission: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Nov. 28, 2018 | Lars Gotrich -- Some days, you can hear a go-go band revving up the party or a pianist busting the keys wide open, luring NPR staff to the Tiny Desk. But in the hushed performances, your ears need to lean into the sound so that your entire being can take in every fingerpick of string and each hummed melody. The Innocence Mission, ever the most careful cultivators of quiet, encouraged us to come closer, to discover the “thing beautiful enough“ in the moment it’s delivered. The trio — now three decades into its existence — bookends this performance with two songs from 2018’s Sun on the Square. “Green Bus“ and “Light of Winter“ thread the long and winding needle of Karen Peris’ evocative words with her husband Don Peris’ decorative-but-nuanced guitar and Mike Bitts’ deft bass lines. In some of my favorite lyrics of the year, Karen Peris tangles the tender and the tempestuous: And what could I bring you, now in the meantime? Fruit from the sunlight, quartz from the bay? And where will I find thi