In October 2011, Andrea of Radio Rio will celebrate her 10-year anniversary at 88.1 KDHX. Upon her arrival in St. Louis, Andrea brought her small but lovingly cultivated collection of Brazilian CDs and her sharp musical wit to an eager public.

Wanda Jackson
The Party Ain't Over
Third Man

For her latest album, The Party Ain't Over, Wanda Jackson, the first lady or queen of rockabilly (depending on who you ask), sets out to push her work into the 21st century. To that end, she's enlisted the help of Jack White. White proves a nice complement to Jackson and introduces some much needed rough edges to what could have been an overly polished collection of standard rockabilly fare.

In the grand tradition of faux family bands everywhere, the Kopecky Family Band has a wonderfully full lived-in sound. Grounded in the beautifully paired vocals of Kelsey Kopecky and Gabe Simon the group brings their sense of familial intimacy to a fairly straightforward (though never dull) indie aesthetic.

It's easy to close your eyes and sink into the waves of sound reverberating through the meandering yet never morose compositions of City Center. The east coast duo brought its dreamy, distorted sound to Juxtaposition.

It seems odd to describe an evening as "gentle" which includes a stomping interlude of quasi-southern rock, but that feeling dominates when recalling the night spent with Casey Reeves, Ha Ha Tonka and Rocky Votolato at Off Broadway.

of Montreal
False Priest
Polyvinyl

Of Montreal’s tenth album, False Priest, rattles with dark energy that shivers from fatalistic undertones reminiscent of Bowie at his oddest and perhaps even a touch of the Cure. Over the course of its past musical output, Of Montreal has evolved an intricately layered sound. False Priest presents a fleeter production with some harder edges, but retains the familiar mixture of upbeat melancholia.

For those of you who don’t know, Sunday was Jeff Tweedy day in St. Louis. Local devotees gathered in Forest Park to mark the momentous occasion and celebrate with a day full of diverse music and good beer. Judging from reports of the first day at LouFest the crowd and vibe seemed fairly equivalent for day two — even if festival-goers were looking a wee bit more sunburned and stiff from all the time spent rocking in the park. It was an interesting scene to be sure. Hipsters mingled with hippies and there were plenty of adorable little kids on hand to twirl ecstatically to the raucous sounds of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and back up Jeff Tweedy on the harmonica.

Emerging from the dirty yet alluring morass of culture and humidity that is Chicago, Fruit Bats share a musical pedigree with their early contemporaries and collaborators such as Califone and the larger group of artists on the Perishable Records label.

Like a magpie drawn to shiny baubles, a listener can be lured to Islands for its off-kilter world with glittery beats tucked inside catchy hooks. Dynamic front man Nick Diamonds and guitarist Geordie Gordon brought their pleasantly strange musical stylings to town with an acoustic stop at KDHX.

Stepping inside the warm environs of Sleepy Sun’s music is to encounter raw and powerful emotions, but the journey will be pleasant enough despite the challenging terrain. The San Francisco band graced the KDHX studios with its brand of carefully balanced contradictions