Atlanta singer-songwriter Cat Power, aka Chan Marshall, heated up our Sessions studio with a sultry, barefooted performance. Wearing a partially unbuttoned shirt with a loosened tie, the smoky-voiced singer grooved to a bluesy batch of covers off her latest album, 'Jukebox.'

"When I'm writing songs, all those memories of growing up and life are in my original material," she tells Spinner. "But when I'm doing the covers, I still have all these other flooding memories of growing up, too. So my heart and soul are in equal parts in different ways."

"Interpretively, different songs take on different meanings to me once I'm singing them live with an audience," she continues. "It's like the songs are teaching themselves to me. That's what I love about interpretation of song."

Before the Interface ramps up the new year with brand-new episode, we've got another batch of highlights from 2007. Last week, we introduced Part One of our year-end wrap up, and have since culled together a second batch of first-rate performances, including Tegan and Sara, Bloc Party, and a stunning rendition of David Bowie's 'Starman' by of Montreal.

Meanwhile, subscribe to the show and dig through the Interface archive to catch every last peformance. Keep reading to download the highlights edition podcast, and stay tuned from new performances from the likes of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and the New Pornographers in 2008.

The boys on the cover of 'The Black and White' album stopped by The DL to show us Sweden's new national sport. It's a dangerous, take no prisoners game of concentration -- raw power like nothing you've seen before. If not properly trained, it can lead to blindness, low self-esteem and, in some cases, complete annihilation. In the end, only one will survive. At least that's how they pitched it to us. Who will rule the hive?

This past summer finally saw the release of Carina Round's third album, the Glen Ballard-produced 'Slow Motion Addict.' The album serves as two firsts for the British singer-songwriter: 1) working with a named producer, and 2) sharing the writing duties.

"We'd get into the studio at "a couple o'clock," as [Glen] liked to say, have some wild, strange, cryptic conversation about something then we'd just start to play," Round told Spinner following her four-song Interface performance. "I'm kind of a music Nazi and he's the complete opposite. I actually co-wrote for this record -- not with Glen -- but with different other people and with my band members. The whole experience was quite a challenge for me. I'm not the kind of person that can go into a meeting, shake hands, sit down and start writing songs with somebody."

Meanwhile, Round just wrapped a fall jaunt with Annie Lennox, and has already begun writing new material for an 'Addict' follow-up, including the delicate should've-been, 'Backseat of Your Mind.' "I don't want to change it up too much," she said of the song, which she wrote with 'Come To You' collaborator Gary Go. "Some people hear it and say, 'You definitely need something else. It needs to grow, or some big drums and blah blah blah.' They want it to become something more spectacular. I think it's something spectacular in itself. It's not the song that needs to burst into the room, drunk, and exclaim its presence. It should just creep up to you."

Keep reading to download both the full, unplugged performance and interview.

Just one day after playing the first of her only two U.S. shows this year, at New York's Beacon Theatre, PJ Harvey, who just released her latest album, the piano-based 'White Chalk,' stopped by our Manhattan studio for a four-song performance and interview. Donning a raven Victorian dress, Harvey needed little decoration for her tunes, as her solo set, much like the new album, relied heavily on only two things: a percussive, haunting piano -- a new instrument in Harvey's musical palette -- and a voice that has found no boundaries over the course of her 15-year career.

"Initially, I was [intimidated by the piano], actually," Harvey told Spinner. "I found myself avoiding playing it for about three months after I first had it. I had never had a piano before. I was nervous about approaching it for a long time, and then as soon as I got over that, it just became this wealth of inspiration, really, because I didn't know what I was doing. I've never really been a player that knows much about the theory side of music -- even to do with guitar. But I've gotten so familiar with shapes on the guitar, and I would know what shapes would work together. But with piano I knew nothing."

Watch the full performance and interview, in which Harvey discusses which of her albums she favors, what she was like as a child and why she'd like to sit down with Bjork and Tori Amos once more.

Los Angeles-based band Uh Huh Her -- musician/actress Leisha Hailey and singer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Camila Grey -- stopped by our New York studio following a whirlwind weekend that saw the duo playing only their second show ever, just on the heels of the release of their debut EP, 'I See Red.' As a matter of fact, it was only Grey's second-ever performance in the city -- the first of which incurred an unfortunate run-in with a Manhattan staple: a pigeon.

"This is going to make me sound like a nerd but whatever," Grey told Spinner at their Interface taping. "I was in choir in high school, and I came to New York. I was in Time Square -- it was a bunch of choir people -- and we were walking around and a bird pooped on me. Then, a guy hit me [with his bike] right in the shin and he was like, "F--- you." I was like, 'Really?' I got a really great taste of New York when that happened, but it was so funny. It was like, "Are you kidding? You're going to yell at me for running into ... me?'"

Uh Huh Her -- who play Friday night at L.A.'s Knitting Factory, followed by a series of West Coast and European dates -- are currently writing songs for a proper full-length album to be released in March of next year. Meanwhile, keep reading to download their full four-song performance and interview, where the duo discuss Hailey's return to music, Mozart and why bathrooms can never, ever be sexy.

Ani DiFranco was an idiosyncratic folk icon from the word go. The prolific singer-songwriter -- known as much for her percussive six-string picking as her tatted skin, once-shaved head and staunch DIY ethos -- fled her native Buffalo for New York City in 1989 at the age of 18, only to release her debut album on her own Righteous Babe Records from the trunk of her car within one year. DiFranco recently released her first career-spanning retrospective, the two-disc, 36-track 'Canon,' and stopped by our New York Interface studio to play us four songs, including the new track 'Present/Infant,' and an old favorite, 'Both Hands,' which undergoes a fairly radical reinvention.

"That was a funny story -- re-recording 'Both Hands.'" DiFranco recounted to Spinner. "We recorded it with [bassist] Todd [Sickafoose] and [drummer] Alison [Miller]. 'Canon' was all done, remastered and the graphics and the cover ... And we were going over the lyrics -- me and my manager -- and he's like, "Well, 'Both Hands' -- you sang that one really differently. Should we change the lyrics?" I was like, "What?" And he said, "Well, that verse you left out." The album was supposed to come out in a couple weeks. I was like, "Oh, no!" I forgot to sing the third verse or something. Through the miracle of technology, I went and dropped in the third verse."

Keep reading to download both the full performance and interview, where DiFranco discusses her near two-decade career, who she's supporting in the 2008 election, her newfound motherhood and just how many times she forgets her lyrics.

Seasoned soul-rocker Ben Harper recently dropped by our Los Angeles studio to perform songs from his eighth studio album, 'Lifeline,' and discuss the making of that album, most of which took place in one of Harper's favorite cities: Paris. "You're not only a product of where you're from, but a product of where you're at," the California native told Spinner. "Being in Paris brought out a sound and a feel to this record."

Watch Harper's five sparkling live performances and don't miss the interview, which finds Harper listing his favorite songs to cover, including Pearl Jam's 'Indifference,' and weighing in on the upcoming Presidential election.

Full Set


'Fight Outta You'

'In the Colors'

'Fool For a Lonesome Train'

'Having Wings'

Interview

Scottish firecracker KT Tunstall dropped by our U.K. Sessions studio to perform tunes from her sparkling sophomore effort, 'Drastic Fantastic,' including the album's first single, 'Hold On.' Go 'head and get your clap on.



Watch more performances from KT Tunstall's Sessions.
Watch KT Tunstall Rock the DL's 'Star Trek' trivia.

No, they didn't play 'Don't Dream it's Over,' but the newly reunited Crowded House stopped by our L.A. studio to play a couple of songs from their new record, 'Time on Earth,' as well as two other classic cuts.

'Nobody Wants To'

Leslie Feist took time out from performing three songs off her new album 'The Reminder' for the DL show to school us on all things Canadian.

"Canada is more about the space in between the cities than the cities themselves," Feist told Spinner. "There's a worldwide benevolence towards Canadians. I get a bit of a get out of jail free card with that one."

But there's one uber-Canadian act that this friend from the North has never done. "This year my goal is to go and tap maple syrup. [That's] the ultimate Canadian thing." Eh?

To experience Feist in all her glory, keep reading.