Music

Travel to northern places in Europe and North America to hear the sound of unspoiled landscapes and rocky shorelines bathed in northern light.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Ahmed Janka Nabay was one of the first musicians to take 500-year-old bubu music outside of his homeland of Sierra Leone, where he'd been a rock star. Nabay was forced to flee the country in the midst of that country's civil war, and eventually wound up in Philadelphia in 2003. Nine years later, Nabay's band has released its first album, En Yay Sah, which blends bubu and electronic dance music.

Singer, songwriter and author Josh Ritter had just reissued his second album, The Golden Age of Radio, when he appeared on Mountain Stage in April 2003.

Texas rockabilly singer Ruby Dee is the author of Ruby's Juke Joint Americana Cookbook. For the occasional Tell Me More series "In Your Ear," Ruby Dee talks about the music that inspires her inside the kitchen and on the stage.

Two weeks ago, the inimitable Tori Amos played an intimate show at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, accompanied by a string octet, in celebration of the release of her retrospective album Gold Dust.

The morning after a sold-out show at Los Angeles' famed Hollywood Bowl, Hot Chip rolled into our studio to play an energetic set of electro-pop. The amount of live instrumentation these guys use — there are seven members — is always impressive. Their latest album, In Our Heads, has been one of our summer soundtrack essentials at KCRW.

Watch Hot Chip perform "Look At Where We Are," then catch the rest of the session at KCRW.com.

A lot can happen in six years. For Milwaukee-bred trumpeter Philip Dizack, it marked the passage of an era worth documenting in his own artistic chronology.

"End of an Era represents a moment when what you had is gone," he says about his new album during this session from WBGO's The Checkout. "For me, it's specific things like family relationships that ended. Both of my grandparents passed away. All those things were very personal, but I saw that everyone goes through something. And it's all the same."

Country-music singer-songwriter and actor Dwight Yoakam blends several genres on his first album in five years, 3 Pears. Released last month, 3 Pears is full of surprises, jumping from Motown and soul to light pop and no-frills rock 'n' roll. Beck produced two of its tracks, while Kid Rock co-wrote the catchy lead single "Take Hold of My Hand."

In this World Cafe session, Yoakam performs four tracks from 3 Pears and sits down for a lengthy and at times emotional interview with host David Dye.