Known for his gruff, tattooed, bearded look and his foot-stomping, sing-along songs, Rateliff has released a soul-baring new solo record.

The band is made up of five close friends who've been playing together for 10 years. You can hear that sense of close collaboration in this mini-concert.

The daughter of Bobby McFerrin, Madison is like a hypnotist: She creates expansive, atmospheric grooves that grow and bloom, layer by layer.

For next month's Sense Of Place, we go from Charlottesville to Richmond. Today we explore both cities with WNRN's managing producer, music writer and host Desiré Moses.

The Hackensaw Boys have been performing together for nearly 20 years. The veteran act has a knack for storytelling, and many of its songs are about the band's hometown.

JJ Mitchell and Hana Elion's voices are so perfectly in sync that when you hear them sing together, you'd almost think it's one single voice.

The co-frontman of the Philadelphia band Modern Baseball pulls in some of his former bandmates for a different sound in Slaughter Beach, Dog.

The band's new record, Half Moon Light, features sing-along choruses, hand-clapping rhythms and melodies that somehow sound familiar even on a first listen.

The Canadian songwriter explains what it's like being a musician with synesthesia, meaning he can see sounds.

Though his music is sometimes called Americana, Tyler Childers rejects that label. "I don't know what it's called, but I've been calling it country," he says in this session.

Nothing about the music Samantha Fish makes suggests that she's ever been shy. Hear a live performance in this session.

Hear Marcus King perform songs from his new solo album and share his first memories of playing guitar from The Lounge at World Cafe Live.

M.C. Taylor's new album is so full of truth he originally wasn't sure if he should release it at all. Fortunately for us, he did.

The California band's music blends lo-fi surf-rock, garage rock, Americana and psychedelic into something so unique it needed to come up with its own genre.

With In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, the Canadian band delivers big, bright songs with thoughtful lyrics.

Desert Dove is a country album, but kind of like her life, it doesn't stay settled in just one place. There are cinematic strings, and nods to indie rock and honky-tonk.

Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper recently released a Christmas EP called Dear Santa. They performed some of the songs in a live mini concert for World Cafe.

The 21-year-old artist's song, "Pretty Girl," reached a million views on YouTube within a week. "It's very hard for me to wrap my own head around, and I understand what the internet is," Clairo says.

As the son of Ugandan parents, he struggled with feeling like an outsider. But he's back with his third album, simply titled Kiwanuka.

Some of World Cafe's favorite songs of the year include music by Strand of Oaks, The Head and the Heart, Clairo, Sharon Van Etten and more.