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After fans clamored for its release, Extraordinary Machine finally came out. The result is honed down to its essential and most striking features: Fiona Apple's voice and a modest accompaniment produced by Dr. Dre protege Mike Elizondo.

Led by bird scientist Jonathan Meiburg, who performs double-duty in the alt-folk band Okkervil River, Shearwater finds inspiration both in nature and in albums by Brian Eno and Talk Talk. A two-headed monster, Shearwater is part sorrowful folk ensemble, part noisier Americana outfit.

Julia Fischer is only in her early 20s, but she's turning heads in the violin world. We hear the Munich-born Fischer play Beethoven's Romance No. 2 in concert with the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic. Marek Janowski conducts.

Hyphy is a rap style out of the suburbs of San Francisco, defined by its fast pace and intricate wordplay. It's now getting national attention, as rapper E-40 has an album in Billboard's top 100. Youth Radio's Tapan Munshi explains.

Sarah Harmer's music used to be categorized as alt-rock, but recently she has turned her signature intelligent songwriting to her country and bluegrass roots. Her latest album, I'm A Mountain, is a throwback to the back-porch folk album that she recorded for her father in 1999.

Armed with a steel dobro resonator guitar and an unwavering passion for music, Rocco DeLuca and his band The Burden offer an intensely cathartic, emotionally charged take on blues — and especially the classic blues-rock tradition.

Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche of Wilco join forces with musician and producer Jim O'Rourke for a rock 'n' roll CD with songs that tackle nothing less than two of the most elemental forces in human life: love and religion.

Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote the librettos for Don Giovanni and other Mozart operas. The Venice-born writer helped bring the Mozart's works to life, seeming to know exactly what the composer wanted to say, the author of a new Da Ponte biography says.

One day, musicologist John Work happened to record an obscure street singer's blues talent. Discovering that field recording leads commentator Bruce Nemerov to reflect on how the blues were marketed before World War II.

One of the most beautiful, disquieting hip-hop tracks in recent memory, J Dilla's "Stop" packs its 99 seconds with melancholy strings and electric guitars, rugged beats and turntable scratches. The track is built on samples of Dionne Warwick's "You're Gonna Need Me."