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When recording its latest album, Snowflake Midnight, Mercury Rev turned to publicly created and shared electronic instruments and software to create ethereal and deeply textured layers of sound. The band's members discuss their process of incorporating technology and losing themselves in music.

Fifteen years after it was released, Exile in Guyville still resonates — if not for its faded shock value, then for its brilliant songcraft.

The musician, political folk-song enthusiast, inventor and film-strip maker uses outdated equipment to explore new dimensions. His electronic instruments seem to come right out of '50s science fiction.

Joseph Arthur has had a busy 2008. The singer-songwriter and painter has released four EPs and one full-length album, Temporary People, this year alone. Arthur talks about his new releases, his music style and the differences between music and painting.

Vocalist Howard Tate found success in the '60s and '70s, thanks to a voice Elvis Costello called "the missing link between Jackie Wilson and Al Green." After overcoming addiction and homelessness, Tate is back to spread a message of hope and second chances.

With twee-pop minimalism covered in fuzzy distortion, Vivian Girls' members sing slightly off-key harmonies with a detached approach that would make Beat Happening smile. The Brooklyn trio performs a brand-new song, "Second Date," and more in a KEXP session recorded at the Gibson Showroom for the CMJ Music Festival.

Local Colombian music permeates the soundscapes crafted by the band Aterciopelados. But what gives the group's music its universal appeal is something less tangible: a quality of dry-eyed optimism that proves both persuasive and reassuring in these troubled times.

In a session recorded by KEXP during the CMJ Music Festival, Fujiya & Miyagi's members play the ambient funk cuts off Lightbulbs. The band closed the set with an unreleased song, "Sick and Tired" — a piano-driven romper that sounds like David Bowie's "Suffragette City" on a heavy krautrock kick.

Work is nothing more than eight hours of stress, with a lunch break in the middle. You find it's getting easier than ever to fly off the handle, even when the cause is as benign as a lack of hazelnut creamer in the coffee line. Don't reach for the Alka-Seltzer or Prozac. Instead, these five tunes will ease your toughest day on the job just fine.

The artist-in-residence at New York's Middle Collegiate Church is on a mission to transform the way people think about organists and their instruments. On his new CD Revolutionary, he plays a virtual pipe organ that uses computers, amplifiers and speakers to create a big, bold range of sound.