Music

The Daredevil Christopher Wright is a band featuring brothers Jon and Jason Sunde, along with the percussion and voice of Jesse Edgington. The band began in 2004 in Eau Claire, Wis., and put out a second full-length album, The Nature of Things, earlier this year. Now we've got a new song, "A Man of the Arts," which will appear on a split 7" single the group is sharing with the Brooklyn band Cuddle Magic. It may be too simple to say that what attracted me to this song was its vibe, but it's the truth.

Divine Fits' pedigree jumps out straight away: The band features Spoon's Britt Daniel, Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs, and New Bomb Turks' Sam Brown. Daniel and Boeckner met a few years ago when Daniel attended a Handsome Furs concert, and the two have remained friends ever since.

Polaris Prize-winning singer-songwriter Patrick Watson makes music the way some directors make film: in three dimensions and with lots of emotion. With the aid of guitarist Simon Angell, percussionist Robbie Kuster and bassist Mishka Stein, Watson crafts songs that are experimental in nature, blending cabaret-style pop with classical and indie-rock music.

For a group that had been dormant for a decade, Witch Mountain sure has been prolific lately, with two albums in two years (South of Salem made my 2011 year-end list, while the equally mighty Cauldron of the Wild came out in June) and now a five-week tour that will take the doom-metal band across the U.S. and back home to Portland.

Last week, Joel Rose wrote about the compact disc on its 30th anniversary, but it could have been an obituary. In the last decade, CD sales in the United States have dropped by more than two thirds, fulfilling a cycle that dates back to wax cylinders and 78 rpm discs: the 20 to 30 year lifespan of a format, followed by the rise of a new technology. So we decided to look at the format that usurped the CD's place in music listener's ears and hard drives, if not always hearts.

Iris DeMent has returned with her first album of original music in 16 years, Sing The Delta, on her own Flariella label. The album brings the delta to life through timeless songs, DeMent's richly evocative voice and support from a cast of first-call musicians including Al Perkins, Reese Wynans, and album co-producers Bo Ramsey and Richard Bennett.