Despite its rough lo-fi edges, bare bones production and lyrics that ache with bruised emotions, Fossils and Other Phantoms (June 1, Yep Roc) from British anti-folk trio Peggy Sue finds its own dark beauty in the strikingly direct harmonies of Katy Young and Rosa Slade. This is music of bitter winds and storm clouds, raw and biting in pain and melancholy as if any protection against the exposed elements is stripped clean. Guitar, mandolin, accordion are the backdrop for Young and Slade's paired vocals, drummer Olly Joyce adding percussion that moves from brushed snare to rhythmic firepower as harmonies bend, break and soar unfettered.

Recorded in London and New York's Lower East Side, Fossils is a disarming mix of PJ Harvey, Indigo Girls and Kimya Dawson, the scruffy cousin of U.K. neo-acoustic thrush Laura Marling and pub-folk skifflers Mumford and Sons. Lead track "Watchman" sums up the Peggy Sue style with intertwined harmonies and shadowy minor chords knocking up against Joyce's thumping bass drum and scattershot cacophony. "The Shape We Made" is a gem of acoustic punk simplicity as single plucked strings give way to slowly building tension, vocals drifting from a sweet whisper to impassioned shout. Says Q: "(An) amiably unvarnished debut...a bit punky, a bit folky, even a bit rockabilly, but always refreshingly themselves." Recommended.

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Peggy Sue - "Watchman" (from the album Fossils and Other Phantoms)

Peggy Sue - "The Shape We Made" (from the album Fossils and Other Phantoms)

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Annalivia is a Boston-based acoustic quintet adept at combining neo-traditional Anglo-Celtic folk with its Appalachian-styled American off-spring. Fronted by singers Liz Simmons and Flynn Cohen , the group juxtaposes lamenting ballads with spry uptempo reels with a virtuosic array of string instruments from Cape Breton fiddle to clawhammer banjo to acoustic bass. New sophomore album Barrier Falls (May 18, 5 String) is another shining example of classic folk moving easily into a modern setting as traditional compositions sit comfortably next to original songs.

We first took notice of Annalivia when they covered the classic Richard Thompson track "Walking On A Wire"and reworked the classic Pentangle track "When I Was In My Prime" for their self-titled debut. To these ears it's the ability to span genres and generations that makes the Barrier Falls work in a special way. Taking on the traditional "John Riley", a song that's been covered by the likes of Joan Baez and The Byrds, Annalivia breathes new life into the track with a flurry of plucked strings and sharply defined fiddle backing Simmons' clear, softly sanded vocals. Everything old is indeed new again with Annalivia. Recommended.

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Annalivia - "John Riley" (from the album Barrier Falls)

Annalivia - "When I Was In My Prime" (from the album Annalivia)

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Allison Moorer mixed things up a bit on her February album Crows, moving away from her alt-country and Americana-influenced folk to a more sophisticated and dynamic pop edge. But what didn't change is Moorer's way around a great melody -- something that comes into more distinct and up-close focus on her new solo Crows Acoustic EP, arriving digitally May 25. Stripping away the studio backing of six tracks that originally appeared on Crows, Moorer gives each song a more private and personal reading with the help of producer Jason Finkel. The new EP also comes just in time for the beginning of Moorer's summer concert tour and just weeks after giving birth to her first child with alt-country pioneer Steve Earle in early April.

Speaking of birth, Moorer says of the new EP: “I always like to give people an opportunity to hear a song in the form it was born in. And sometimes with a twist. That’s what this recording is about.” Songs include a haunting version of "Sorrow Don't Come Around" a track we called "a magnificent ballad written at the time that she found that she was pregnant -- and seven months after an earlier miscarriage. Also on tap is DC favorite "Broken Girl", "When You Wake Up Feeling Bad" and the Crows' title track. Recommended. More on Allison Moorer and Crows here.

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Allison Moorer - "Sorrow (Don't Come Around)" (solo piano version live, original from the album Crows)

Allison Moorer - "Broken Girl" (acoustic version, original from the album Crows)

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With each successive album, Boston based acoustic explorers Crooked Still have succeeded in breaking down one genre barrier after another, creating an elegant and visionary interpretation of what contemporary folk and bluegrass music can sound like. "We have modern and traditional influences that confuse the boundaries," says bass player Corey DiMario. "We want to keep blurring those lines to make something all our own." For the fourth Crooked Still album Some Strange Country, due May 18 via Signature Sound, the adventurous quintet worked with producer Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss and Union Station) to further expand the quintet's sound, even to closing the album with an inspired take on "You Got The Silver" from The Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed.

In keeping with the Crooked Still affection for old and new, "Silver" joins six traditional reworkings and four original songs to give Some Strange Country an appeal to both nu-folk and classic acoustic enthusiasts. The playing is flawless, humming with an intuitive interactive play and the arrangements have an almost lushly orchestrated feel -- but it is, to our ears, the resplendent vocals of Aoife O'Donovan that is Crooked Still's ace in the hole. By turns airily pretty and darkly beguiling, O'Donovan injects the stirring album opener "Sometimes In This Country" and the lovely, spare hymn "You Were Gone" with an enticing edge. “The music is not just ‘alternative bluegrass’ or whatever people used to call it,” the band's Brittany Haas remarks. “It’s at another level now: artful, but still grounded in that funky, string band thing.” Highly recommended.

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Crooked Still - "Sometimes In This Country" (from Some Strange Country)

Crooked Still - "You Were Gone" (from Some Strange Country)

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Welcome to the Night Sky, the 2007 album from Nova Scotia's excellent smart-rockers Wintersleep, was not only one of our favorite albums of the year it also won the band a Best New Artist Juno and solid notice from a variety of hipster scribes. Few indie collectives have both the grandly anthemic scope capable of an eight-minute opus and thoughtful, skillfully rendered songcraft in their arsenal and Wintersleep tracks "Archeologists" and "Oblivion" quickly heralded the arrival -- albeit three albums in -- of a band whose time had come in a big way. Now after a couple of side projects including the divine Postdata album from frontman Paul Murphy, Wintersleep returns with New Inheritors June 1.

Once again produced by Tony Doogan, New Inheritors has the skilled firepower and big concepts of the its predecessor while bringing an even greater immediacy to the sound. "With every record, we move closer to how we sound live," says Murphy of the new project. "It's nothing crazy different, but it's definitely a progression from our other records." The staggered rhythms, chiming bass lines, reverbed haze and what he calls the "Northern soul" influence of the title track all lend a polished, poised gleam to the band's penchant for making meticulous introspection sway with authority. And it's the jagged guitar and pummeling drums that set the backdrop for Murphy's rising vocal intensity on lead track "Black Camera", a venture into dark corners yielding distorted, alternating riffs of joy and anguish. Highly recommended.

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Wintersleep - "New Inheritors" (from the album New Inheritors) (free download @ the Wintersleep website)

Wintersleep - "Black Camera" (from the album New Inheritors)

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Unflinching, clear-eyed and brutally honest soul-searching can often reveal the most telling and beautiful truths in the hands of an artist with a soul that's actually worth searching. Suburban Nature (May 18, Kirtland -- digital now), the provocative and quietly commanding debut album from 24-year-old Denton, Texas singer/songwriter Sarah Jaffe strips back, track by amazing track, any remnants of artifice or glossy veneer to get to the naked core of the personal joys, pains and haunting imagery that pulse beneath her bruised, resilient skin. But this journey is no weak-kneed sob story. Jaffe gives as good as she gets and by the time the closing notes fade you feel a mix of relief and exhilaration, a soul bearing session of self-realization spun into melodies that beg immediate revisiting.

"I'm a fan of life’s wicked ironies," says Jaffe. " These things that reveal the truth from an aerial view nowhere near your perspective of the situation, and through these realizations you find redemption.” Suburban Nature producer John Congleton captures this intimacy by making Jaffe's naturally unmannered vocals the "focal point" surrounded by "as much space as possible." From the stripped ballads "Wreak Havoc" and "Stay With Me", where you can practically feel Jaffe's whispered breath on your ear, to the shimmering riffs and simmering heat of the mini-epic "Summer Begs", this is an album of brilliantly understated, finely crafted miracles. Highly recommended.

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Sarah Jaffe - "Stay With Me" (from the album Suburban Nature)

Sarah Jaffe - "Summer Begs" (from the album Suburban Nature)

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Whether you're a fan of Hawaiian-born Jack Johnson's laid back surfer folk vibe or not, it's hard not to be impressed with the man's unassuming lack of superstar ego. For a man who has sold nearly 20 million albums worldwide over the course of four simply constructed albums since 2001, Johnson has achieved enormous success on his own terms, building a huge and hugely loyal fanbase and even co-founding his own Brushfire label. A dedicated green energy enthusiast (both of his recording studios are solar powered) and family man, Johnson has helped disprove the notion that nice guys finish last.

New fifth studio album To the Sea, arriving June 1, was co-produced by Johnson, his bandmates bassist Merlo Podlewski, keyboardist Zach Gill, and drummer Adam Topol, and Johnson's longtime engineer Robert Carranza. The Jimi Hendrix-inspired lead single "You and Your Heart" kicks off with a tender hooked acoustic riff before evolving into a harmonied sing-along of simple but undeniable pleasure. As the follow up to his #1 charting 2008 Sleep Through the Static project, To the Sea promises no major changes to the Johnson attitude or sound -- just a 35-year-old man reflecting on life through the chords of a guitar. "Water is the subconscious," he reflects, "and that water for me is the ocean. To get to the sea is being able to dig in and touch things that aren't on the surface. That reference - that 'we've got to get to the sea' - is about a father leading his son to try to understand himself."

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Jack Johnson - "You and Your Heart" (from the album To the Sea)

Streams are for sampling only -- support and respect the artist: buy the music...

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Hammock's Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson call their rapturously cinematic music "stargaze", a lush and ambient style that falls somewhere amidst the pioneering electronics of Tangerine Dream, floating guitar washes of The Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, post-rock atmospherics of Austin's Explosions in the Sky and the layered modern explorations of Sigur Ros. On their upcoming May 18 album Chasing After Shadows Living With the Ghosts, the Nashville (!) based duo again create lengthy compositions of celestial beauty and scope, where chiming guitars, strings, occasional vocal choirs and stately percussion meet, mingle and drift apart in slow-motion grace. The post/rock dreamscape visions that permeate Hammock's music offer a calming respite while gently leading you by the hand (and ear) down through the misty shadows into sunlit, widescreen vistas.

Cerebral art-rock can sometimes get a bad rap for pretentious and precious meanderings but when Byrd and Thompson's deeply melodic foundations and artisan craftsmanship are front and center it's hard not to give in and simply be utterly and completely captivated. With their ethereal 2005 debut Kenotic, Hammock's mostly instrumental music became something of an underground sensation and the duo were invited by Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros and Alex Somers of Parachute to perform at the opening of their art exhibition in 2007 (the Hammock live debut, actually). Chasing Shadows track "Breathturn" is the score to a fascinating video  from director David Altobelli (watch it after the jump) while the nine-minute "You Lost the Starlight In Your Eyes" is available as a free download at the Hammock site. Dive in. Highly recommended.

Hammock - "You Lost the Starlight In Your Eyes" (from the album Chasing After Shadows...)

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In what may be her most personal and introspective album of the dozen that she's recorded, The Age of Miracles (ZOE/Rounder) arrives April 27 from five-time Grammy winner Mary Chapin Carpenter. Described as an "exploration of regret and resilience", Miracles' twelve new songs were created during the recovery from a life-threatening illness, a time of reflection on her own life and relationships -- past and present -- and the turbulent world around her. "I have always made albums with the idea that each one is a snapshot of where you are in your life, she observes. "That is no different with The Age of Miracles."

Following up her 2008 seasonal album Come Darkness, Come Light and '07's The Calling, Carpenter's new project was co-produced with long-time collaborator Matt Rollings (Lyle Lovett) and features guest vocals from Vince Gill ("I Put My Ring Back On") and Alison Krauss ("I Was a Bird"). As usual, Carpenter's trademark songwriting is impeccable with sweeping melodies and exquisitely turned lyrical phrases providing the underpinning for her tender, often world weary but evocative vocals. In an age when "flavor of the month" artists come and go, spending time with The Age of Miracles reminds us that there's a reason why truly gifted artists like Carpenter not only persevere over time they thrive. Highly recommended. Sample tracks below and at the Rounder site here.

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Mary Chapin Carpenter - "I Was A Bird" (from the album The Age of Miracles)

Mary Chapin Carpenter - The Age Of Miracles sampler ("We Traveled So Far", "I Put My Ring Back On", "Holding Up the Sky", "The Way I Feel")

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Brooklyn-based troubadour Richard Julian has been creating his own unique brand of witty, refined and sprited folk/pop for over a decade, releasing a handful of excellent albums and touring with the likes of his Lower East Side friend Norah Jones and Suzanne Vega. New album Girls Need Attention, arriving May 4 via new label Compass, continues Julian's creative winning streak in high style with the songwriter laying out the detailed emotional facets of a lost love affair with a combination of cunning, sharply observed songcraft and a rejuvenated spark. Recorded at Norah's home studio and produced by former Jones collaborator Lee Alexander, Girls' stellar guest roster includes Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, Jolie Holland and Sasha Dobson.

New songs such as the bright and jangly "Lost In Your Light" and the lovely Paul Simon-ish acoustic gem "Window" rank with the accomplished songwriters best and most personal excursions. “I don’t know how to NOT write confessionally" admits Julian, "the songs always feel like a shopping cart that veers in that direction no matter which way I try to steer it.” Smart and smartly produced, adorned with a simple, graceful elegance, the artful Girls Need Attention is another compelling reason why Richard Julian deserves ours. Highly recommended.

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Richard Julian - "Lost In Your Light" (from the album Girls Need Attention)

Richard Julian - "Window" (from the album Girls Need Attention)

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Aussie singer/songwriter Xavier Rudd combines swaying beachfront funk, shimmering acoustic folk melodies and loping, sun-drenched reggae rhythms for a sound that simmers with slow-burning intensity and tropical heat. Fourth album Koonyum Sun (April 20, Fontana North), his first since his appropriately titled, harder edged 2008 album Dark Shades of Blue, is something of a distillation of Rudd's evolving styles since launching in '02: the simpler acoustic soul songs epitomized in lead track "Love Comes and Goes" merging into the fuller, more electric and spacious production of "Soften the Blow", "Sky to Ground" and the densely dramatic and propulsive title track.

Following a devastating emotional breakup that fueled his Dark Shades, the brighter Sun is abetted in high style with the addition of bassist Tio Moloantoa and percussionist Andile Nqubezelo, African musicians who, as Izintaba, add a new found depth to Rudd's expansive compositions in their contributions to the writing and arranging. The beats are fluid and bobbing, the curtain opened wide with a kit bag's worth of both traditional and modern instruments and vocals that swoop, drone and weave in between the glossy percussive waves. "It’s been the most inspirational musical experience of my life,"  Rudd says about his collaborations with Tio and Andile. "We have an undeniable connection – musically, spiritually, and emotionally. I feel like they were sent to me." Highly recommended.

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Xavier Rudd and Izintaba - "Soften the Blow" (from the album Koonyum Sun)

Xavier Rudd and Izintaba - "Sky to Ground" (from the album Koonyum Sun)

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The Sadies are akin to the best mixologists, creating the most interesting and potent musical concoctions from the purest organic ingredients -- in this particular case, 60's vintage country rock, astral psychedelica, 80 proof Nashville barroom twang, West Coast surfer vibrato and raggedy punk aesthetic. You could easily spend an entire evening trying to dissect and analyze the various influences that crop up on a Sadies album (or even within the same song) but to get caught up in the reflections is to miss the distinctive and completely original work that hangs in front of you. Maybe if the Toronto quartet's output was a little less reckless, slightly less raucous and a tad more predictable it would be easier to ignore -- but the growing collection of inspired and inspiring music from frontmen Dallas and Travis (perfect, yes?) Good and The Sadies make each album essential listening.

The new Darker Circles, arriving May 18 (Yep Roc), is again produced by Gary Louris, the former Jayhawk-er who handled the band's 2007 album New Seasons. The Good brothers along with drummer Mike Belitsky and bassist Sean Dean, have been known for their impressive instrumental skills, most notably as Neko Case's go-to backing band for her Tigers Have Spoken LP. But with New Seasons and now Darker Circles, the songwriting continues to step up and purely instrumental tracks such as the majestic stylistic mashup "Ten More Songs" (Neil Young meets "Tommy" at an Italian rodeo?) that closes the album become fewer and farther between. Circles is not a dramatic change in sound and style but more of a mature refinement that comes at the hands of masters. Highly recommended.

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The Sadies - "Cut Corners" (from the album Darker Circles)

The Sadies - "Ten More Songs" (from the album Darker Circles)

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The Hold Steady's frontman Craig Finn has described the band's last album -- 2008's well-received, 90k-selling Stay Positive -- as being "about the attempt to age gracefully." We're not sure exactly what the theme is for the Brooklyn based indie rockers fifth opus Heaven Is Whenever (May 4, Vagrant), but based on what we've heard we'd say that the "aging gracefully" period is officially over. The crunchy riff-rock and run-on lyrical dexterity that finds the nexus between Springsteen and the Replacements has, if anything, taken a more aggressive stance with the departure of the band's keyboard maven Franz Nicolay, the addition of guitarist Steve Selvidge for the Steady's charged live shows and a more pronounced role for lead guitarist Tad Kubler.

Producer Dean Baltulonis, who handled The Hold Steady's 2005 album Separation Sunday, is back at the helm for Heaven's ten new tracks, many of which have been "road tested" over the last couple of years in a live setting, allowing the band to evaluate "what was working and what wasn't", according to Finn. New songs that did make the cut include lead single "Hurricane J", a track that exemplifies Finn's assessment of the new "sense of space" on the album, the result of the larger guitar/smaller keys strategy . There's a bristling, energized core to the more stripped down sound of "Hurricane J" as well as the raucous "Rock Problems" while our fave "The Weekenders" allows for a more dynamic foundation and intense, slow burn. Highly recommended.

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The Hold Steady - "The Weekenders" (from the album Heaven Is Whenever)

The Hold Steady - "Hurricane J" (from the album Heaven Is Whenever)

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Singer/songwriter Laura Bernhem joined up with producer/instrumentalist Richard Swift last year to form The Mynabirds. Together they've created What We Lose In the Fire We Gain in the Flood (April 27, Saddle Creek), a retro-styled collaborative debut that has echoes of another famous pairing: Welsh singer Aimee Duffy and producer Bernard Butler for the monstrously successful '08 album Rockferry. Both Bernhem and Duffy have a fondness for classic R+B tinged girl-group pop, 60's blond 'do's and distinctive, neo-Dusty voices (though Bernhem's doesn't go for the exaggerated pouty edge that Duffy perfects). The Mynahbirds sound has been described as "nodding to gospel and garage" and Fire/Flood does indeed explore that classic mix, looking to find that self-described "Neil Young doing Motown" sound. The aspirations here are modest -- and we're not looking at a breakout work on a par with Rockferry or the Amy Winehouse arc -- but this is an album that feels comfortable, loose and spirited.

As with any highly stylized-sounding album, the fear is that the revivalist trappings will overly dominate. Fortunately, Bernhem's songwriting skills give the debut substantial legs to stand on independent of the time-travel production. Lead track "Numbers Don't Lie", a sly and soulful song that manages to make a big sound feel completely accessible, sets the tone but it's "L.A. Rain" that really tugs on the proverbial sleeve: a rumbling, rambling bass line, classic backbeat guitar riff and killer chorus hook converge for an exceptionally skin-tight fit. Recommended.

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The Mynabirds - "L.A. Rain" (from the album What We Lose in the Fire, We Gain in the Flood)

The Mynabirds - "Numbers Don't Lie" (from the album What We Lose in the Fire, We Gain in the Flood)

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It's nearly impossible to find a picture of Jeff Beck that doesn't somehow also involve a guitar. Playing live, album covers, even posed publicity shots, the legendary and pioneering Brit player is never without his trusty white Fender Strat. But when you're an iconic classic rock figure spanning more than 45 years (he did after all replace Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds -- and Jimmy Page did the same for him), it somehow makes sense that man and instrument would be so eternally entwined. Beck has always been both influential artist and artisan, music scholar in a way as well as technician (just how does he get that particular distorted tone?). His fluid, inventive playing style -- almost always in an instrumental setting -- has become one of the most recognizable in rock and his groundbreaking mid-70's albums Blow By Blow and Wired still sound amazingly fresh today.

 Aptly titled new album Emotion and Commotion, due April 13 (Rhino) and his first in seven years, is a grab bag of scattershot styles and moods, from jet-fueled rock pyrotechnics ("Hammerhead") to stately classical grandiosity ("Nessun Dorma") to soulful classics ("I Put A Spell on You" w/ Joss Stone) to...well, much more in between. And that's not a bad thing. As an instrumentally minded virtuoso, Beck's guitar is, of course, his voice. Listening to the monumentally gorgeous closing track "Elegy for Dunkirk", a stunning combination of orchestration and Beck's signature soaring guitar lines, you understand perfectly why Beck doesn't really need a singer (plus they're "too poncy and they get in the way", he jokes). Recommended.

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Jeff Beck - "Serene" (from the album Emotion and Commotion)

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Singer/songwriter Claire Small has called both Nashville and Austin home -- with the Lone Star locale being her current residence -- and it's easy to hear the influences of both in her music. The rootsy Americana that sits comfortably next to the more indie-styled pop energy in her best songs reflects the mix of influences at play in her writing, many of which are grounded in what she describes as "1930’s and 40’s American roots music (including) artists like Hank Williams and Robert Johnson." She adds, "for me, roots rock describes the filtering of these influences through the rock music I listened to in my teenage years. There are also a lot of big, poppy harmonies and arrangements on this record, emulating bands I loved when I was younger like The 5th Dimension and the Mamas And The Papas."

The songs on her upcoming third album How Do You Like Love (May 18, Freedom) trace her journey from Nashville to Houston and then Austin, the personal relationships (and their failures) that motivated her move and the ever-maturing outlook on life and love. Songs such as the fine title track -- bringing to mind Shawn Colvin or a twangier Ingrid Michaelson -- are, in her own view, decidedly "more personal and to the point." Arrangements for the new project came from Small and her backing band of Matt Esky on bass and Stephen Belens on drums with guests including guitarists Jon Dee Graham, Doug Lancio and the busy Joe McMahan. Recommended.

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Claire Small - "How Do You Like Love?" (from the album How Do You Like Love?) (Free download at her site)

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Tapping into Brazilian music takes a certain understated finesse on the part of any vocalist. The music is all about the subtle, swaying seduction of the listener, nothing too forceful or urgent to distract you from the small but distinct pleasures. In the hands of the right interpreter, the samba and bossa nova rhythms and sultry, breezy atmosphere can become the pure art of musical restraint. New York-based singer and arranger Margret has a voice that's made to explore this particular style, a sandy-textured wisp of a vocal that's like gentle streams of reflected light diffusing a darkened room with a warm glow.

Com Você -- meaning "with you" -- is the sensuous second album from Margret arriving May 11 (Sunnyside), as well as the name of her backing band. The mood is refined throughout the album's nine tracks as the Polish born singer and saxophonist Stan Gillian keep things fresh and original, breathing new life into versions of "Wicked Game" (yes, the Chris Isaak hit -- with a gypsy flair), the classic "Call Me" and even an inspired new take on Rufus Wainwright's "Peach Trees." Of course there are also the requisite Brazilian standards, handled with a delicate touch and made even more appealing with Margret's airy, wistful Portuguese vocals adding an exotic touch. Recommended.

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Margret - "Call Me" (from the album Com Você)

Margret - "Wicked Game" (from the album Com Você)

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Finding that rarified and hallowed space between cerebral and elegant rock melodies, dark, dramatic tension and the occasional outburst of explosive power, New York's midwest transplants The National have almost single-handedly raised the bar on what a contemporary and artful indie band can accomplish. The two sets of instrumentally gifted brothers -- Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Scott and Bryan Devendorf -- along with frontman/lyricist Matt Berninger, with his distinctive, somber baritone, have created some of the most lavishly praised albums of the last decade, particularly 2005's breakout Alligator and 2007's Boxer (described by Paste as "the most gorgeous, affecting record of the year"). Despite a fairly low profile and a rather nondescript name, The National have methodically, unpretentiously crept into the "yeah, they're great" category -- and sold nearly 200,000 copies of Boxer -- without having to resort to the usual look-at-me media stunts.

Not surprisingly, new album High Violet (May 11, 4AD), is garnering hefty advance buzz. Lead track "Bloodbuzz Ohio", is a grand peak at what's in store, a stately, densely packed and taut rocker that is propelled by Bryan Devendorf's incendiary, muscular drum play. Berninger's sober, matter-of-fact vocals and obscure lyrical references may appear somewhat at odds with the flurry of percussive thrust and layer upon layer of foreboding instrumentation, but after a few listens the sheer haunting magnificence of the song seeps through, unobtrusively and without breaking a sweat -- just like The National themselves. Described as the band's "most thematically twisted record to date", we find ourselves anxiously -- if quietly -- awaiting High Violet.

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The National - "Bloodbuzz Ohio" (from the album High Violet) (Free download here)

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We'll admit that we're hardly what you would call a great place to discover new jazz artists, but we also hope that you'll indulge our random genre-crossing whims and listen to Norwegian jazz pianist Espen Eriksen's lovely, low-keyed album You Had Me At Goodbye (April 13, Rune Grammofon). Taking a cue from acclaimed piano trio E.S.T. and their late, great namesake Esbjörn Svensson, Eriksen fashions spare but wonderfully melodic songs that seem as untethered and light as clouds. The production is lush but uncluttered, just the sound of piano, bass and drum leaving plenty of open space for the notes to resonate and sing.

You Had Me At Goodbye is, as their bio insists, jazz -- but it's also something more...and less. The solos are brief, the improvisation as far from discordant as possible and, in many ways, these are simply beguiling melodic songs that happen to be instrumental: the "voice" here is Eriksen's piano. Goodbye pretty much had us at "Anthem," a track that takes all the right turns, moving easily to minor chords and delicate, loosely structured flutters of spinning piano lines. We're also seduced by "In the Woods", a song that builds on a rhythmic bass foundation with graceful, building intensity, chord progressions and piano notes that literally seem suspended in air. This is the soundtrack for your next best day. Highly recommended.

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Espen Eriksen - "Anthem" (from You Had Me At Goodbye)

Espen Eriksen - "In the Woods" (from You Had Me At Goodbye)

You Had Me At Goodbye is also available at the Amazon.com mp3 store and iTunes.

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Grammy-nominated alt-country/Americana songstress Tift Merritt returned to her Carolina roots this past year with her band and producer Tucker Martine (Decemberists, Laura Veirs), emerging with her fourth studio album See You On the Moon arriving June 1 via Fantasy. "I wanted to take everything to a place that was less labored, of more depth," she says. "Open space, real strength. There was a certain feeling of inevitability about it. Like I found these songs whole." Less thematic than her last studio effort, 2008's fine, autobiographical Another Country, Merritt's new project finds her forcefully pushing musical boundaries, trying a variety of new instruments and tone and ending up with a dozen songs for what she describes as "a really direct record."

Songs such as the dramatically swelling "Engine To Turn" and the magnificent centerpiece "Feel of the World" (featuring My Morning Jacket's Jim James) maintain what Newsweek has described as Merritt's "magical combination of cool reserve and effortless warmth". Creating simple folk melodies and fleshing them out with stripped and staggered rhythms, See You On the Moon is awash with ringing guitars, the occasional tender twang of a pedal steel and densely layered vocal harmonies. As with the alluring ballad "Things That Everybody Does", Merritt and Martine bring bold and bright brushstrokes to Moon's expansive musical canvas, lending the sessions a distinct and organic live feel. Ethereal impressionism is out, clear-eyed realism is in. Highly recommended. Merritt is previewing a new song from Moon on her website every week until the album's release.

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Tift Merritt - "Engine to Turn" (from See You On the Moon)

Tift Merritt - "Things That Everybody Does" (from See You On the Moon)

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