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Leave it to Americana's favorite fiftysomething enfant terrible to set her greatest work against her worst. Producer Hal Willner weaves organ and violins through stunning vignettes like "Rescue" and anatomy-of-a-teardrop "Mama You Sweet," each nudged forward by Bill Frisell's jazzy hypno-wheels of guitar.

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This fresh-faced trio makes pop music for snobs, bending familiar sounds into odd shapes, like an even more fidgety XTC. In less ironic hands, the creamy-sweet voices (shades of Yes or Supertramp) and clean, perky grooves might be a source of mindless comfort, but here, they're unstable elements in a constantly shifting landscape that induces a sense of gnawing anxiety.

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"Those were happy times," Jesse Sykes exhales frostily over tremulous spy-movie guitar, but her lyrical interest in clouds, ghosts, and broken branches raises some doubts. Regardless, the riveting porch noir of the Sweet Hereafter is her ticket to heaven.

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Once the Atari 2600 of the post-rock scene, D.C.'s Trans Am now allow their metronomic rhythms to loosen up and go disco when the mood suits. Primarily instrumental -- with an occasional chanting vocal -- their eighth album never rests in one spot.

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'Stars Learn to Sing Like Me' might've been a more accurate title for the latest solo album by this 40-year-old mother of four, whose mid-'80s power trio, Throwing Muses, laid the groundwork for subsequent women-in-rock heavyweights like Polly Jean Harvey and Sinéad O'Connor.

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Regan "Busdriver" Farquhar embodies everything exhilarating and frustrating about indie-underground hip-hop. He's got a savagely self-aware wit, a gift for freewheelin' lyrical flights, producer friends who burrow inside his tracks and draw out their mad moods, and the most minimal capacity for anything resembling an accessible hook.