Will Hermes

More than anything Malkmus has done, Real Emotional Trash engages in the sort of shape-shifting that marked Bob Dylan's career. He wears a different mask on virtually every song, and it certainly helps that the band is his strongest post-Pavement outfit yet.

Kathleen Edwards is a 29-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter with a taste for rock 'n' roll, folk and especially country music. Given her country of origin, it's no surprise that her songs find metaphors in hockey skates and border crossings instead of red dirt farms or the Blue Ridge Mountains. On Asking for Flowers, she steps up her game even further.

Zach Condon is a young singer-songwriter who grew up in Albuquerque, N.M., but whose musical interests have looked abroad. His debut, which drew on Balkan gypsy music, was a surprise hit among Internet indie-rock cognescenti last year. His second set with the band Beirut is The Flying Club Cup.

Battles looks like a normal quartet, but it doesn't act like one. Band members play two or three instruments simultaneously and then digitally loop the sounds they've just made. So the group, in essence, becomes five, six or seven members at once.

After Spoon toiled in the majors for a few years, they returned to the little world of indie-rock and rethought their approach. Not only did their music get more interesting and more tuneful, but they also started selling more records than they did when they were part of a giant conglomerate.

The Icelandic singer Björk has a new CD out called Volta. Reviewer Will Hermes describes it as highly energetic and creative. He speaks to Björk about her work, which includes African harp music and collaborations with pop producer Timbaland.

The band Modest Mouse have grown from a well-respected indie-rock act to a major-label band that sold over a million-and-a-half copies of its last record, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, in large part because of the inescapable single "Float On." Their new LP is titled We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank.

Damon Albarn is an increasingly busy British musician whose past projects include the rock band Blur, the pop/hip-hop mutation Gorillaz, and a West African ensemble called Mali Music. His latest group, which has just released their eponymous debut, is The Good, The Bad, and The Queen.

The 2004 movie Garden State transformed the Shins from a little known indie-rock band to a mainstream sensation. Their eagerly awaited new album is out today. The album shows the Shins expanding their sound without losing the melodic pop-writing they're known for.

Joanna Newsom plays the concert harp, an unusual instrument for a singer-songwriter. Her debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, was widely praised in 2004. Newsom has a long-awaited new record, Ys.