Music

The country-rock band Lucero makes its second appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live on the campus of Ohio University in Athens. Road-tested for more than a decade now, Lucero's distinctive sound mixes soulful horns with pedal steel, keyboards and brash guitars.

Legendary songwriter and producer John Cale is back with Shifty Adventures in Nookie World, his 15th solo album and first since 2005. Cale shape-shifts often throughout the record, channeling a discotheque in the Danger Mouse-produced "I Wanna Talk 2 U," picking an acoustic guitar throughout "Living With You" and venturing into folklore in "Sandman (Flying Dutchman)." Post-punk, hip-hop and everything in between comes into play at one point or another.

Love This Giant developed like many a New York City-bred friendship. Both parties are kind of hazy about how it began, but after a couple of semi-chance encounters, David Byrne and Annie Clark, who records and performs as St. Vincent, embarked upon a creative dialogue that has flourished over the last three years.

The sad, gorgeous chamber-pop of North Carolina's Lost in the Trees really caught my attention earlier this year: Inspired by classical music and heavy personal experiences, the band's music is dark and beautiful. Performing in the KCRW studios, Lost in the Trees also took the opportunity to introduce a new song its members have been playing on the road, titled "Glass Harp."

Singer-songwriter Ben Schneider is the creative force behind the rhythmically inventive folk-pop band Lord Huron. The band started out as a multimedia solo project, but it now includes Mark Barry on percussion and vocals, Miguel Briseno on bass and percussion, Brett Farkas on guitar and vocals, and Tom Renaud on guitar and vocals.

A native of Gothenberg, Sweden, Jens Lekman has never been one to take songwriting inspiration from the usual sources — he's shown a knack for taking unlikely subjects like drive-in bingo parlors and Rocky Dennis and infusing them with wit and romance.