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The Ride is the latest album from Los Lobos, a band known for mixing folk, blues, rock and Latin rhythms. The group, which marks its 30th anniversary this year, was formed by classmates at an East Los Angeles school. The Ride, their 12th album, is on the Hollywood Records/Mammoth label. Critic David Greenberger has a review.

Elaine Heinzman offers a diary of five days in March at South By Southwest, the annual music festival in Austin, Texas. She sifted through an eclectic mix of 1,300 bands to fine-tune her sense of emerging trends.

Rahim not only draws inspiration from a specific sound — think Fugazi, The Dismemberment Plan, and other bands that add an element of adventurousness to rock and hardcore punk — but it also expands on those acts' exploratory sensibilities.

Akron/Family makes a dynamic, experimental, unpredictable indie-folk racket, with influences as disparate as classic rock, psychedelic guitar, found sound and gospel. But in "Love and Space," it puts its considerable vocal talent to work in a campfire spiritual.

The band's tripped-out music is as mysterious as its members' bizarre personas. Recording under strange monikers, they use old keyboards to craft a psychedelic electronic mixture.

Jose Gonzalez was born in Sweden to Argentine parents and raised on bossa nova and Joy Division. Haunting and ominous yet seductively heartening, "Heartbeats" finds him reworking a song originally performed by the Swedish electro-pop band The Knife.

Neko Case grew up in Tacoma, Wash., attended art school in Vancouver and performs and records with the Canadian pop-rock band The New Pornographers. As a solo artist, her music has often tended to be more influenced by country and folk music. Her new CD, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, is her fourth studio album. Our music critic says it contains some of her most complex and beautiful music to date.

Southern Culture on the Skids brings the trailer park into your living room -- that is, unless your living room is already in a trailer park. NPR's John Ydstie speaks with members of the rock group about a new CD, Mojo Box.

Roger Miller is a musical legend. No, we're not talking about Mr. "King of the Road." This is the Roger Miller who fronted the early '80's Boston band, Mission of Burma. Today, this Roger Miller is best-known for his work with the silent film ensemble, Alloy Orchestra. But he's also a composer who creates challenging music for his current duo with drummer Larry Dersch. They call their group, Binary System. Sean Cole, of member station WBUR, reports.The new recording by Binary System is called, Invention Box.It's on Atavistic Records, catalog # ALP 127 CD.

"Adventures in Solitude" closes the band's fine new album without conserving hooks: Opening with a few spare verses and memorable interludes, the song soon blooms into a series of rich, warm-blooded choruses, as Neko Case rushes the spotlight and the strings sweep in.