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Warning: the album trailer for Superchunk’s second post-hiatus album, the wonderfully-titled I Hate Music, is a tease of epic proportions. That is to say, the trailer itself is not epic - less than ninety seconds, total - but all the crunchy riffs it crams in are titanic, and man, do we ever need to hear the rest right now. 

If there was ever a score all of life's moments that fall into the realm of the metaphysical, for the ineffable feeling inherent in human nature, and the beauty in the space between light and emotion, it's in the sounds of Brian Eno. In an almost synesthesiac way, he manages to give us the sonic interpretation of that which we can only see, bringing to life the hidden textures of the world around us. And as the pioneer of experimental sound, he has been working for decades now, crafting music valuing theory over practice as a composer, producer, visual artist who builds landscapes of atmosphere that transport you into a state of mind beyond words. Over the years, he's collaborated with everyone from David Byrne and David Bowie to to U2 and Paul Simon, as well as various filmmakers and artists, continuing to be as prolific as he is inspirational to an incomparable number of artists. And as today is his 64th birthday, what better way to celebrate than looking back on some of his most brilliant works. Enjoy.

It's been a big week for music of all genres, from Daft Punk and The National releasing streams of hotly-anticipated new albums to the first music video recorded in space to Beyonce canceling a show and firing off thousands of pregnancy rumors from the four corners of the Twitterverse. And yesterday, in Sweden, the biggest annual party in pop music and manifestation of odd geopolitical relationships, the Eurovision Song Contest, held its first semifinal round. The offerings were typical Eurovision fare: lots of melancholy ballads, the sorts of songs the voters and judges eat up and are well-executed vocally, but ultimately kind of dull. And then, there was Montenegro.

Thirteen years ago, The Dandy Warhols, at that moment still a one-hit wonder with “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth,” which signaled the end of that stage of heroin chic, released thirteen new tracks under a title that can still be cringed about. But Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia, which gets the expanded remaster treatment this summer, is far better than you remember.

Like a frozen breath of cold air in the morning, Nadia Sirota's debut album, first things first, was a strikingly bare and brilliant work of classical music. And as one of the most prolific and unique violists working today, Sirota's work is as technically skilled as it is emotive—vacillating between erratic stabs and tender caresses, sparking up your nerve endings and layering strings in the most captivating way. 

It's summer's last breath and the air hangs like sheets of silk that grace your skin with each step. The sun is just setting—or maybe it's rising, but it's no matter. The  world melts around you, as you begin to exist in feeling rather than words, in tastes rather than physical terms, floating in and out of coherent consciousness. There's a very specific feeling growing inside you and it's all poetic and encompassing, yet if asked to articulate it, you'd most likely fall short—but you can feel it, so you know it to be true. It's as if you're seeing the world shone in a fresh light, understanding the ineffable things that eluded you so heavily in the past.

Tomorrow, astronaut Chris Hadfield, Commander of the International Space Station, will return to Earth after a long journey exploring the nearby cosmos. Along the way, he's kept the world entertained and enraptured with his incredible observations and photos of the Earth from space (many of which can be seen on his Twitter page), from thunderstorms over the Amazon to swirls in the Black Sea. He's also been known to pick up a guitar and play a tune or two, so what better finale to his time as Commander than to release, via YouTube, the first music video ever recorded in space? 

Give The People What They Want is the entirely spot-on title of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings newest album, due in August—you’d be hard pressed to find a more universally crowd-pleasing ensemble. The eleven-piece(!) outfit took a year to record in Bushwick after an extended tour of I Learned The Hard Way, and their lead-off single, “Retreat!” is anything but.