"Strange days are here again, so this one's from the heart," sings Jim Guthrie (a Toronto-based songwriter and member of the bands Islands, Royal City and Human Highway) in the opening moments of "The Sound Of Wanting More." The sonic mood may be strange and dreamlike but the emotional yearning shines through.

Iron & Wine's latest release "Ghost on Ghost" shows Sam Beam's curiosity for new sounds. The songwriter combines insightful lyrics, hints of jazz, and fresh chord progressions to craft an enjoyable and satisfying listen from start to finish.

"You can't plan every piece," sings Grant Olney on the new single "Not From Body," but the tough puzzle of learning to love and getting fitful glimpses of peace all falls into place.

Invitations are rarely as seductive as "This Is the Beginning," a tart folk-pop tune by BOY -- the Hamburg-based duo of Valeska Steiner and Sonja Glass -- that takes the familiar, youthful experience of being along in a strange city and learns how to make the strangeness sing.

Wife and husband Noëlle Hampton and André Moran may have years of touring and recording behind them, but their new band, the Belle Sounds, offers a fresh start -- and, on the new track "Should Have Been Mine," a fresh, tensely-lit, guitar-pop treatise on the allure and threat of the all-mighty dollar.

When St. Louis' noisy-folk quartet Theodore ended, Justin Kinkel-Schuster went down to Mississippi to record some songs with his friend Andrew Bryant. This endeavor lead to what became the first batch of Water Liars songs.

Company of Thieves was back at Off Broadway Friday night, this time with a much more intimate show.

"Southern Colorado Song" finds Wooden Wand (aka James Jackson Toth of Lexington, Ky.) turning up the amps to a dirty and dreamy 11.

"Younger Days," the latest track from North Carolina's Mount Moriah (Heather McEntire, Jenks Miller and Casey Toll), sparkles with a hard-to-pin-down, twangy yet very pop sweetness.

Though it was released in the summer -- and both the album and band take their names from the French bon hiver, meaning "good winter" -- "Bon Iver, Bon Iver" is infallibly a record for the autumn months.