Jacob Ganz

Whether you use it as a balm or an echo chamber for your despair, Ware's second album is a celebration of gloriously messy feelings, each tamed by her soft touch.

After two solid albums, Too Bright is something shockingly new for Perfume Genius: a set of muscular, magnificently controlled songs that explore darkness inside and out.

Highly emotional rock that reads as low-stakes at first, Lost in the Dream is evocative and pleasant if you let it float by in the background. But it's made with hooks that sink in deep.

The Nova Scotian stalwarts attribute their longevity to a tight code of democracy and avoiding the spotlight.

In rock and roll terms, the Portland-based band is a veteran act. When they started playing together 17 years ago, they had no idea the gig would last. Now, Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss have put out their eighth album, called American Gong.

In 1989, two members of the rock band Superchunk launched a tiny record label. Twenty years later, amid the struggles of the music industry at large, Merge has become one of the most respected and successful companies in the business.

Forty-five years after the debut of Terry Riley's IN C, the composer and his son, guitarist Gyan Riley, talk about performing the minimalist classic together.

Last year, the band Grizzly Bear earned the acclaim of critics with Yellow House, recorded in and inspired by the childhood home of frontman Ed Droste. The Brooklyn band's songs are warm and comfortable, yet somehow strange and new.

Radiohead shook up the music industry last week, when it announced that its new album would not be released as a CD, or as a download through iTunes. Instead, it is offering In Rainbows through its own Web site for whatever price each customer decides to pay — even nothing.

In Rainbows, Radiohead's first album since 2005, will appear online Oct. 10, with a specially-boxed CD/LP set to follow in December. The band is working without a label and the album will debut on the Radiohead Web site.