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Hailing from Long Beach, Calif. the aptly named five-piece, Greater California, makes music that is delightfully nostalgic, hopeful, and a bit retro. The instrumentation is bright but woozy with subtle traces of psychedelia, and the vocals are equally distant and dreamy and often refer to things in the past. The song "It's Great," in particular, sounds like it was meant to accompany some epic cinematic moment with a sullen protagonist who silently comes to a significant realization.

Music critic Milo Miles reviews two new albums: Booker T. Jones's Potato Hole, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi.

Growing up in New York, Diana Jones devoured the music of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris. She left home at the age of 15 in search of her roots, and discovered them in the music of the Eastern Tennessee hills. Jones' latest album is Better Times Will Come, a vivid 11-song collection that's biographical in nature.

Relentless7 isn't just another one of Ben Harper's side projects. Instead, the band replaces Harper's past sound with stripped-down rock, which it plays in a session with host David Dye. Relentless7's debut album, White Lies for Dark Times, weaves Harper's soulful singing together with energetic drums and cascading electric guitars.

A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane and his powerful quartet, remains a towering and seemingly untouchable jazz classic. But the virtuosic genre-benders in the Turtle Island Quartet have done it justice, re-working the seminal album for strings and winning a Grammy for their trouble. They perform a live version on this week's JazzSet.

Until a video of "Stand by Me" had gone viral on YouTube, Roger Ridley had sung and played guitar anonymously on the streets for years. A new collection, Playing for Change: Songs Around the World, is a cross-continental effort that connects disparate cultures with the universal language of music.

When Michael Benjamin Lerner stopped by the KEXP studios with Telekinesis, his songs sparkled with buoyant melodies and catchy hooks that shone like little pop gems. He pounded away on the drums in a frenzy of intensity and joy while singing along without effort.

On this edition of All Songs Considered Sonic Youth,Bat For Lashes, Mamer, Marianne Dissard, Mulatu Astatke and Heliocentrics, and Manchester Orchestra.

On a new CD, God Shall Be Praised, recently discovered manuscripts at a 12th-century German convent awaken an ancient sound world. The shifting patterns of melodies were composed with subtle genius, to interest the ear but also create a sense of calmness and inner reflection.

Although an agnostic, Verdi was a man of profound conscience and spirituality. In his Requiem, he projects the essentials of humanity — piety, emotion, agitation and capacity for hope — as compassionately and dramatically as in his operas.