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On last year's buoyant and easeful Lie Down in the Light, prolific singer-songwriter Will Oldham was in love and diametrically opposed to the mind-set of his unflinchingly dour 1999 indie-folk classic I See a Darkness (the title track of which was later covered by Johnny Cash). But how could a song about a public blow job not brighten your spirits?

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Vocalist Ida No and beat programmer Johnny Jewel morphed from glam­damaged no­wavers on 2003's Love Love Love into Italo­disco zombies on 2007's B/E/A/T/B/O/X.

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Outlaw legend Willie Nelson's 1977 album To Lefty From Willie was an attempt by a superstar to exalt a forgotten honky-tonk hero -- Lefty Frizzell. But here, when Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck and his band pay homage to Nelson, it feels like a greenhorn hitching on to the pothead patron saint's biodiesel wagon as a credibility grab.

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A waterlogged sample of a voice croaking, "You can dance" opens Animal Collective's ninth album, and it's a sign of what's to come, even if the trio take their time before dropping a beat.

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In a previous epoch, Austrian guitarist/laptop composer Christian Fennesz would be a New Age enabler, strumming pristine instrumental ruminations. In the 21st century, though, he can't help but conjure oil slicks and hazmat alarms, practically submerging the pastoral melodies.

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While Russell's left-field disco singles -- Loose Joints' "Is It All Over My Face?" and Dinosaur L's "Go Bang" -- remain his career's standard, new facets of the singer-songwriter/cellist's talent have emerged since his death from AIDS in 1992, including electro pop, minimal classical composition, and now, jangly folk rock.