The World Cafe

Austin's Max Frost is doing a radio tour in support of his new Low High Low EP and will be making a stop by WCBE!

The music of Pacifika draws you in almost immediately: The Vancouver trio's musicianship is superb, buoyed by a voice that stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it. Pacifika's sound has been labeled as world fusion, but that label is more of a restriction than a description. The group's acoustic base and subtle electronic flourishes provided a great way to start its musical journey, but Amor Planeta raises the stakes with an electric-guitar bite that adds a crucial dimension.

Lykke Li is a pop star looking to change the pop conversation. The Swedish singer's new third album, I Never Learn, forms the final installment in a conceptual trilogy — and it's extraordinary as both a collection of songs and a tactical re-wiring of her genre's circuit board.

Many young singers are stalked by an ill-fitting, virtually unshakable descriptor, whether it's a limiting and vaguely dismissive adjective ("quirky," for example) or a limiting and vaguely dismissive noun ("songstress," to pick one that should be banished from the language and buried under 10,000 pounds of rock salt). For Nikki Lane, that descriptor seems to be "outlaw country" — a generally defensible expression, but one that can subtly imply an element of posturing, even posing.

The creators of pop music are usually able to break down the fundamentals of their craft — that search for the clever rhyme, the killer beat, the singable chorus. They are less articulate, understandably, about the other quest, the one that powers those everyday searches: the pursuit of ecstasy in sound. There's something almost paranormal about that part of the creative process, yet we know those moments, instantly, when we hear them.

The four-piece British psychedelic rock band Temples will be playing a few songs for us during the Global Village!

Montreal's Sam Roberts Band will return to WCBE for a live session during the Global Village!

British musician Lyla Foy will play a few songs for us during the Global Village ahead of her show that night at The Basement with Wake Owl.

Singer-Songwriter Patty Larkin will join us Live From Studio A ahead of her show that night at The Lincoln Theatre!

The Brooklyn based band We Are Scientists will play a few songs for us during the Global Village!

A lover's obsessiveness may charm at first, but it can soon turn frightening. For an artist, the relentless pursuit of one object — a sound, a memory dragged up and reshaped, a fantasy that makes the long hours of work feel intimate — feeds creativity or freezes it. Greg Dulli has been chasing the same seductive nightmare since he was 22, when his band The Afghan Whigs formed. Next year, he'll turn 50. He's spent a long time, in his mind, sitting in a darkened car in front of the same house.

Tune in for a live session with local group Saintseneca during the Global Village!

Dan Croll, the 23 year old British singer-songwriter will be playing a few songs for us during the Global Village!

With a twang and a yodel, Saintseneca's new album, Dark Arc, begins on a foreboding note. "You're drenched in blood, still warm with with wear," frontman Zac Little sings before leading the band into a driving rock chorus.

Banjo, baglama, bulbul, balalaika, bowed banjo, baritone ukulele, banjo, bass, bouzouki... Saintseneca might pick up any of these instruments at any given moment, and those are just the ones that start with the letter B. The band has its origins and heart in a small Appalachian town in Ohio, as well as a passion for sounds and textures with acoustic instruments at their core. Saintseneca's members eventually settled in Columbus, and they like their acoustic music a bit punkish, with stomping feet as a heartbeat to accompany mind-altering words and music.

Hailing from America and Sweden, Grizfolk will join us in the studio for a live session during the Global Village!

Seattle singer-songwriter Noah Gundersen will play a few songs for us during the Global Village before his show that night at The Rumba Café with Kris Orlowski!

The Brooklyn based Lake Street Dive will play a few songs for us during the Global Village ahead of their show that night at Skully's with Midnight Moxie!

Beck was recording his latest album when he encountered an unexpected hazard in the studio.

"I got bit by a black widow in the middle of this recording session," he says laughing. "I was in the hospital, and my arm was all swollen up."

That was only one of the indignities Beck suffered on the way to Morning Phase.

Columbus' own Lydia Loveless just released her brand new CD Somewhere Else on Chicago's Bloodshot Records!