World Cafe

After playing shows with their parents as children, the members of Haim now work as a serious stand-alone act. The Haim sisters are Danielle, Este and Alana, and their childhood experience of performing live has shaped them into a musical force as young adults. They first hit the L.A. music scene a few years ago — when each of the sisters was pursuing music, mostly in separate contexts — but their relatively recent decision to work together was inevitable.

Gotye (a.k.a. Wouter "Wally" De Backer) has become an international pop star on the strength of his new album, Making Mirrors. The poppy collection includes "Somebody That I Used To Know," which has topped the charts in six countries and hit the Top 20 in 14 others. There's something hauntingly relatable and undeniably catchy about the insightful, ubiquitous break-up song.

Named after a French novella by poet Charles Baudelaire, Fanfarlo is a pop band from London with a wide range of instrumentation: mandolin, glockenspiel, musical saw, melodica, sax, clarinet and the usual drums, bass and guitar. With its beguiling and uplifting pop-folk, the quintet makes music that's accessible, refreshing and whimsical.

Electric bluesman Joe Louis Walker is a living legend. He was strumming a guitar by age 8, and by 16 was on stage; he's released 23 albums over the course of his career. Given his formidable talent and prodigious supply of soul-stirring vocal inspirations, it's little wonder that Walker has become a blues-rock hero and award-winner. He's still going strong, as evidenced by his fierce new album, aptly named Hellfire.

Born in Nashville and more recently a resident of New York, Justin Townes Earle is no stranger to the road, and his latest album, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, takes us down I-40 to Memphis, Tenn. On songs like "Memphis in the Rain," "Baby's Got A Bad Idea" and "Maria," Earle's past becomes an open book and makes for arguably his strongest album yet.