Music

Throughout the new album Jumbie in the Jukebox, Kobo Town frontman Drew Gonsalves declares his love for the past even as his feet are firmly planted in the present. The music of the Toronto-based band can drift between classic Caribbean pop styles and even verge on hip-hop, but the singer's perspective remains sharply focused, wry and witty. The song "Postcard Poverty," for example, ribs tourists for whom tropical slums become an exotic backdrop to their fun-in-the-sun adventures.

Mount Moriah is a rock band formed around the duo of guitarist Jenks Miller and singer Heather McEntire. Its second full-length album, the recent Miracle Temple, combines the strum and twang of Southern rock with vocals that hit hard emotionally.

On this installment of World Cafe, host David Dye discusses with McEntire the complexity of Mount Moriah's sound, as well as her push to explore the nuances in her vocals.

I freely admit that, until the new Random Access Memories, I wasn't much of a Daft Punk fan. I could appreciate the craft and imagination that went into creating the French duo's mixture of electronic genres — techno, house, disco — but the mechanical repetitions and heavily filtered vocals didn't turn me on in any other way.

Yo La Tengo has been able to stick together and make music on its own terms for more than 20 years; in today's climate, that's as rare as it is impressive. In an interview for KCRW, singer Ira Kaplan said the band likes to keep its process in the air and of the moment.

The latest episode of Q2 Spaces takes us to Washington state's Puget Sound and the small sailboat where musician, composer and producer Jherek Bischoff was raised — and to his Seattle apartment, where he surrounds himself with instruments and not much else.

Guitarist Pat Metheny is revered for his bright, accessible modern jazz. Saxophonist and composer John Zorn is associated with much knottier, often dissonant experiments.