Katie Presley

This song couldn't have been released as anything other than a single. A full-length album would collapse under the plaintive, heartbreaking weight of Sara Rachele's "Rebecca," and picking songs to cushion it in a track list would be nearly impossible.

The Decatur, Ga. singer-songwriter's pure, rootsy voice has a thick ...

Thursdays this year we're celebrating All Songs Considered's 15th birthday with personal memories and highlights from the show's decade and a half online and on the air. If you have a story about the show you'd like to share, drop us an email:allsongs@npr.org.

Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are ...

Sometimes an excellent song makes its writer work for it, and sometimes it pours out almost too fast to catch. The latter was the case for Spokane, Wash. singer Cami Bradley and Huntsville, Ala. singer/songwriter Whitney Dean, who met on a whim and, less than a year later, are making ...

Punk has always been hospitable to filth. Blood, sweat, spit, vomit, beer and hair gel from a melting fauxhawk — all are crucial to the movement. Punk embraces the taboo, the base and the precious, forcing all three into conversation. But that's not to say individual punks are inherently interested ...

**Language advisory: This track contains language that may be offensive to some**

Sharkmuffin are either the most glam garage band around, or the grungiest glam band around. The Brooklyn trio of Tarra Thiessen, Natalie Kirch and Sharif Mekawy (with former Hole drummer Patty Schemel) deliver their music mostly in the ...

Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are both out this week, and in their absence All Songs Considered contributor Katie Presley and ASC intern Julian Ring have done what any respectful colleagues would do in similar circumstances: They have taken control of the entire show.

This week Katie and Julian will ...

The annual South by Southwest music festival isn't always kind to the folks who play there. Wildly variable sound quality, noise pollution from all sides, unreliable weather and audiences itching to move on face even the most seasoned performers. When Swiss/German duo BOY played a set on Austin's ...

As singer-producer Cat Martino's electronic side project, Stranger Cat makes bright, skittish electro-pop that belies its dark foundations. Martino's latest single, "Sirens," pairs high-energy production with soaring vocals that sound like a dare to be free. It's a dreamy message rooted, it turns out, in nightmare, and it's that nightmare ...

Quiet moments can hold all kinds of explosions. Eerie meteors streak around the protagonist of singer-songwriter Sye Elaine Spence's new video, "Repeat." They build on a growing sense of tension as Spence's heroine, played by Chayna Douglas, collapses in an idyllic pasture. By the time the camera pans around and ...

Ani Difranco has a line in her 2012 song, "If Yr Not," where she sings, "If you're not getting happier as you get older / Then you're [messing] up." Chicago alt-rock band Veruca Salt certainly didn't seem unhappy in their heyday in the mid- and late-'90s, but it's apparent ...

Modest Mouse often imbues its music with a startle factor. Singer Isaac Brock spits out lyrics like they're burning his tongue, and the band's instrumentation is skillfully frenetic. More than 20 years after its formation in a small city outside Seattle, and eight years after its last studio album, ...

This week marks the mid-point of 2015, and the All Songs Considered team is ready to take stock. On this week's show, we share our favorite music from debut albums released in the first half of this year. It's only June, but we picked the music we're already eyeing for ...

Your first impulse on hearing "Fight Song," the latest single from Minneapolis trio Bad Bad Hats, might be to lean in. Lead singer Kerry Alexander's bright, lively lines swim over catchy acoustic guitar and velvety keyboard. Impeccable production by Brett Bullion (Bon Iver, Poliça) is programmed to fire ...

Adult Mom's Steph Knipe says "Told Ya So" is a "happy queer" song, as "it's a song that acts as a space of self-validation." Adult Mom's music deals deeply and thoughtfully with queerness and identity, a directive made even more impressive by the upbeat, electronic-tinged folk pop the band — ...

There's something particularly delicious about fightin' words sung sugar sweet. Fairground Saints, a newly formed Los Angeles trio, strikes the balance delectably on their latest song, "Turn This Car Around," an argument between lovers sung in call-and-response, then meeting in high folk-pop harmony. Band members Mason Van Valin, ...

The Weepies took a leap with their latest video — figuratively and literally. "No Trouble" is the first video the married duo of Deb Talan and Steve Tannen has appeared in. But it's also one in which they (or, more accurately, their stunt doubles) jump from tall buildings ...

In a technological feat that moved the world, last November the European Space Agency landed the small probe Philae on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which is cruising at some 100,000 miles per hour toward the sun. Excitement turned to high drama when the landing put the probe away from the ...

Los Angeles trio Superhumanoids have only been together since 2010, but their latest single, "Anxious In Venice," sounds like they've matured 20 years since their last release, 2013's Exhibitionists. Playful, '80s-referencing synth lines have given way to darker, seething electronics built from the band's realization that their sound hadn't been ...

**NOTE: This song contains profanity**

Within ten seconds of Beck's new single, I had done about five double-takes. The beloved multi-instrumentalist and producer this morning released a surprise new single, "Dreams," that is as bouncy and playful as he's ever sounded. It's a particular departure coming on the heels of ...

When Ellie Rowsell and Joff Oddie plucked the name Wolf Alice from a collection of short stories by Angela Carter, they were a folk-pop duo armed only with acoustic instruments and a shared love of Carter's twisted fairy tales. They claim to have chosen the name ...