Shearwater

If you love seeing live concerts, chances are you've gone to shows where the clinking beer bottles and incessant crowd chatter were louder than the music. After seeing the soft spoken Laura Gibson lose out to a noisy audience during a show in Austin, TX, All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen and Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson came up with a novel solution: They invited Gibson to play at the NPR Music offices, specifically Bob Boilen's desk, launching what's now called the Tiny Desk Concert series.

We've come up with many excuses to have artists come in and perform Tiny Desk Concerts at the workspace of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. Some are too quiet to be well-served by traditional live concerts, while others are little-known staff favorites who wouldn't ordinarily receive a large-scale webcast presentation. Usually, it's just an opportunity to bring in artists who, for one reason or another, haven't gotten as much of our attention as we'd like to give them.

Led by the breathtaking falsetto of singer Jonathan Meiburg, Shearwater plays dramatic songs that are at once majestic and intimate. The Austin band brings this sonic thrill ride to Washington, D.C., for a full concert, webcast live on NPR.org.

Led by former Okkervil River member Jonathan Meiburg, Shearwater possesses a rich, haunting and musically diverse sound. Last year's Rook is packed with careful, atmospheric arrangements and soothing, dreamlike vocals.

The Austin-based band, led by a part-time ornithologist, gave its new album a surprisingly appropriate title: Rook. Frontman Jonathan Meiburg and company bring their painstaking, beautiful songcraft (and birding obsessions) to WNYC's studios.

Part industry trade show, part fan feast, Austin's South by Southwest provides one-stop shopping for those looking for music discovery. Preview the four-day music marathon.

If you love seeing live concerts, chances are you've gone to shows where the clinking beer bottles and incessant crowd chatter were louder than the music. After seeing the soft spoken Laura Gibson lose out to a noisy audience during a show in Austin, TX, All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen and Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson came up with a novel solution: They invited Gibson to play at the NPR Music offices, specifically Bob Boilen's desk, launching what's now called the Tiny Desk Concert series.

Naturally, no year-end music list can be definitive, just as it's impossible to rate a year in music using purely objective measures of quality. So here are the 10 albums that Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson treasured the most in 2008.

We've come up with many excuses to have artists come in and perform Tiny Desk Concerts at the workspace of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. Some are too quiet to be well-served by traditional live concerts, while others are little-known staff favorites who wouldn't ordinarily receive a large-scale webcast presentation. Usually, it's just an opportunity to bring in artists who, for one reason or another, haven't gotten as much of our attention as we'd like to give them.

The band's new album is dark and graceful, intermittently rocking, and uniformly excellent, making it an ideal showpiece for a band five albums into its career, yet still largely unknown on a grand scale. Best of all is the sort-of title track "Rooks."

Hear a sneak preview of CDs due out this spring, including new music from My Morning Jacket, Shearwater, Elbow, Wolf Parade, and more. All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen talks with Stephen Thompson, curator for NPR's Song of the Day, KEXP DJ Cheryl Waters, and The Current DJ Mark Wheat about the releases they're most looking forward to in the coming weeks.

All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen, NPR's Song of the Day curator Stephen Thompson and Carrie Brownstein, Monitor Mix blogger and former guitarist for Sleater-Kinney, review their week at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, TX. They discovered and saw a lot of great bands including My Morning Jacket and a dozen other acts webcast Live by NPR Music. On this edition of All Songs Considered they share their most memorable moments.

Each obsessive music fan views the obligatory year-end Top 10 list differently, but best-ofs tend to be most effective when the selections are purely a matter of personal taste — "favorites" rather than "best." Here are Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson's picks.

Led by bird scientist Jonathan Meiburg, who performs double-duty in the alt-folk band Okkervil River, Shearwater finds inspiration both in nature and in albums by Brian Eno and Talk Talk. A two-headed monster, Shearwater is part sorrowful folk ensemble, part noisier Americana outfit.

Naturally, no year-end music list can be definitive, just as it's impossible to rate a year in music using purely objective measures of quality. So here are the 10 albums that Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson treasured the most in 2008.

Esquire music critic Andy Langer surveys the week's new CD releases, from Journey, Dr. John, Shearwater, and Weezer.

The band's new album is dark and graceful, intermittently rocking, and uniformly excellent, making it an ideal showpiece for a band five albums into its career, yet still largely unknown on a grand scale. Best of all is the sort-of title track "Rooks."

Hear a sneak preview of CDs due out this spring, including new music from My Morning Jacket, Shearwater, Elbow, Wolf Parade, and more. All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen talks with Stephen Thompson, curator for NPR's Song of the Day, KEXP DJ Cheryl Waters, and The Current DJ Mark Wheat about the releases they're most looking forward to in the coming weeks.

Led by bird scientist Jonathan Meiburg, who performs double-duty in the alt-folk band Okkervil River, Shearwater finds inspiration both in nature and in albums by Brian Eno and Talk Talk. A two-headed monster, Shearwater is part sorrowful folk ensemble, part noisier Americana outfit.

Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson listened to thousands of albums in 2006 before settling on these 10 frequently overlooked favorites.