World Cafe

City and Colour is the alias of Canadian Dallas Green, a Juno Award recipient who is known for his work with the post-hardcore band Alexisonfire. He released his first solo record in 2005 under the name City and Colour, a spinoff of his own name: Dallas, a city, and Green, a color. (Maybe he created this moniker to dispel any confusion that might arise for baseball fans — Green was named for the former Philadelphia Phillies manager, whose team won the World Series around the time Green was born.)

It's a stretch to call "Beth/Rest" the year's most divisive song, but it's hard to discuss Bon Iver's second album without weighing in on its '80s-style closer. Next to the lush, impeccably crafted grace that precedes it, "Beth/Rest" couldn't be more jarring: With its electric keyboards, saxophones and epic guitar solos, the track could double as the lost love theme to a misbegotten action movie in which Morgan Fairchild seduces a suave diamond thief played by Lou Diamond Phillips.

Described as shy and unassuming offstage, Anna Calvi demands attention when she has a guitar in her hands. She has the tendency to look her audience directly in the eyes when she performs. It's this tiptoeing of the line between seductive and unsettling that has helped her gain a dedicated following with the release of her 2011 Mercury Prize-nominated debut.

Marques Toliver, a classically-trained violinist, builds on his Suzuki method foundation to craft songs that effortlessly blend R&B and gospel.

Grammy-nominated roots musician David Bromberg started his career as a session guitarist in the 1960s for the likes of Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker. He ventured out on his own to record a debut album in 1971, and has since created a unique style of blues that prominently features brass accompaniment, known as "hillbilly jazz."