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Backspacer is Pearl Jam's first studio album since the musicians became free agents, finally fulfilling a seven-album contract with Sony. That process took 15 years. The band is now on its own, striking distribution deals with major corporations, a turnaround for the once very anti-corporate band.

Among the Oak and Ash pairs two singer-songwriters on a batch of traditional songs, with non-traditional results. In a session from WFUV, the duo gives folk songs a rock edge.

He has been making music for 50 years now. He played with bluegrass great Ralph Stanley when he was still in his teens, went on to have a streak of country hits and then went back to bluegrass. Now he's returned to the songs he learned from his father when he was a young boy in eastern Kentucky.

With its rough blues exterior and gentle Americana interior, Easton's aptly named Porcupine pulls together the best of both genres and much more. Released in April, the collection of country-tinged songs also visits soulful territory, while held together by Easton's roughed-up vocals.

Pianist and composer Matthew Shipp has an intricate and heady approach to his music, with avant-garde impulses that have led him to experiment with free jazz styles, tape loops and even turntable artists. Here, Shipp settles into one of his favorite environs, the duo format, as he and McPartland explore the outer reaches on "Naima" and Shipp's own "Gamma Ray."

Skillfully combining layers of electric and acoustic guitar, bluesy bass and Petter Ericson Stakee's captivating vocals, Alberta Cross' approach to music is evidently a thoughtful one. Currently residing in New York, Alberta Cross has taken incredible strides to earn global recognition.

Among those who find today's soul throwbacks too mired in the past, Hawthorne's A Strange Arrangement is unlikely to change many minds. Yet the album suggests a promising future for the artist.

Named after FDR's 1939 New Deal initiative, Works Progress Administration features some of the most accomplished musicians in contemporary folk-pop. After a chance meeting between Nickel Creek's Sean Watkins and Grammy-winning engineer Jim Scott, the group was able to record its batch of 17 songs in an impressive five days.

NPR Music's Song of the Day features a new track every weekday, with analysis of the music, links to each artist's Web sites and, of course, a chance to hear the song itself. Here, Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson talks about recent selections by Malcolm Middleton, Japandroids and My Morning Jacket's Jim James.

Landlubbers beware: Peg-legged shipmates may invade your beer halls and cubicles soon. Sept. 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Alestorm is at the ready.