Stephen Thompson

Erik Walters' song builds and builds, piling on pleasing ingredients (churning guitars here, a nice little piano melody there) en route to one grand chorus.

With its buzzy loops, clean guitar lines and a soaring Mimi Parker vocal, the band's exquisite new holiday song feels, appropriately enough, like an actual gift.

White originally co-wrote and sang the song for a 2011 album by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. Here, he plays a live acoustic version and discusses his role in its creation.

If one defining thread ran through 2016's best albums, it was an air of mystery: a sense of myth, otherworldliness, storytelling ambition or multimedia wizardry.

The two will face off for Album Of The Year, along with Drake, Justin Bieber and Sturgill Simpson. Other top nominees include Rihanna, Kanye West and Chance The Rapper.

The Azure Ray singer fills her warm, reflective new album with gorgeous, touching songs about family, legacy and the pursuit of contentment.

The Australian singer covers the breathtaking closing track from Bon Iver's new album 22, A Million unadorned, with only the echo of the room to accompany her.

The gang gathers to discuss the finer points of two very different fall movies. And, as always, What's Making Us Happy this week.

To take in the band's ninth album is to experience a globetrotting victory lap across eight different languages, all tackled with cosmopolitan sophistication and the playfulness of pop.

The prolific psych-rock band's newest album — its second in only three months — traffics in alternately jittery and hypnotic jams.

Glen Weldon and Stephen Thompson break down the late-night field at the end of this bruising election season, and discuss how difficult it is to stand out and say something new.

Nearly 30 years into her career, Mazzy Star's singer still takes her time in the pursuit of beauty. Here, she works with My Bloody Valentine's Colm O'Ciosoig, as well as guests like Kurt Vile.

The band's shimmery folk-pop sound, with its vibraphone and overarching vibrancy, is perfectly suited to the space behind Bob Boilen's desk.

The former Weakerthans singer returns with an album full of gorgeous, vividly detailed songs about characters whose potential doesn't always lend them a pathway out of their own heads.

In a performance of three songs from Impossible Dream, the Minnesota singer-songwriter achieves a nifty balance of stripped-down intimacy and impeccable polish.

These are songs by and for feel-big dreamers, performed with a gift for weapons-grade ingratiation by a pair of born crowd-pleasers.

Radiant warmth meets laconic cool in a breezily beautiful duet between the Mazzy Star singer and the Philly rocker.

The gang discusses a new Western remake starring Denzel Washington, as well as a beloved British TV import starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Plus, as always, What's Making Us Happy this week.

Oberst's distinctive warble is set against a spare patchwork of acoustic guitar, piano and the occasional harmonica, drawing most of the attention to his dark, personal words.

David Longstreth's band returns from a long absence with "Keep Your Name," a song about betrayal and loss with a tortured, deeply conflicted video to match.