Music

A is for Alpine and it's also the name of Alpine's debut album. Alpine is a six-piece ensemble from Australia with an airy sound led by singers Phoebe Baker and Lou James. The group's album, A is for Alpine, has been out in their home since 2012, but it arrives in the U.S. on May 21.

Rusted Root released its first album, 1992's Cruel Sun, independently in the band's native Pittsburgh. It contained the group's signature song "Send Me on My Way," which Rusted Root included on its major-label debut When I Woke; that album was already beginning to climb the charts at the time of this January 1995 performance in West Virginia.

Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave recently re-formed his band The Bad Seeds, minus founding member Mick Harvey on guitar, to record a new album called Push the Sky Away. On this installment of World Café, you'll hear a tremendous performance from the elegant, intensely emotive band.

Natalie Maines is a small woman with a really big voice. Flanked by Emily Robison on banjo and Martie McGuire on fiddle, Maines powered the Dixie Chicks to some 30 million records sold. And then came the collapse — after what the band calls "the incident."

It's hard to find another band that's stayed as true to its vision as Low. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker have been making Low records for 20 years now, and just released their 10th full-length album, The Invisible Way.

Kurt Vile is sometimes known as a shredder, which isn't exactly right. His guitar playing is accomplished, but it doesn't blow your hair back so much as wrap it gently in a worn, sun-bleached kerchief.