Some singer-songwriters are an acquired taste, but Alexa Wilkinson isn't one of them. Her music is immediately appealing, wholly ingratiating, and often undeniable. On her frequently-visited MySpace page (260,000 plays and counting), she cites Melanie as an influence, and that's apparent in her music: like the early-Seventies legend, Wilkinson is poppy, offbeat, relaxed and confident, gently defiant, and slyly sexy. Lions, her latest set, sparkles from beginning to close, and seems poised to establish her as one of the freshest voices in alternative pop.

She'll take her place there alongside the like-minded Josh Kelley, who has been a mentor, tourmate, and frequent collaborator of hers. Kelley co-wrote several songs on Wilkinson's glittering debut and invited the young singer-songwriter out on the road with him; since then, she's shared stages with Kate Voegele and Stephen Kellogg, and captivated crowds wherever she'd played. The singer-guitarist is currently on national tour with Todd Carey and Jonathan Clay, and regularly leaves indie audiences spellbound. And while she's a force in concert, her successes aren't confined to the stage: "Miles Away", one of her best-loved songs, has already been featured on an episode of The Hills.

Alexa Wilkinson is a skillful acoustic guitarist and a vibrant singer, but her first instrument was the trumpet, and her spirited horn-playing is all over the multifaceted Lions. "Vanilla Rain", the lead single, features a brass and wind section - trombone, saxophone, and Wilkinson's own trumpet. It's colorful and slightly whimsical, and it blends so seamlessly into the pop architecture of the song that it doesn't feel at all unexpected. Unusual, yes; incongruous?, never. But the emphasis here is on Wilkinson's storytelling, her emotional honesty, and her expressive performance. She's mastered the toughest and most crucial trick of the confessional style: no matter how much verve she sings with, she still sounds as though she's sitting beside you, crooning directly into your ear.

Gino Tomac's crisply-directed clip for "Vanilla Rain" plays with those notions of intimacy and self-revelation, and presents the artist as a budding motion-picture star, singing her song much as a movie actress would perform her speaking lines. At first blush, the video seems tranquil and domestic: we watch Wilkinson in bed with a young man, softly singing her plea to his sleeping face. Later, they're in the kitchen; she sits on the counter, and smiles as they chop vegetables together. It all appears homey, wholesome. But then a funny thing begins to happen: Tomac starts running some of the footage backward. Wine pours upward into bottles, the bed makes itself, shoes soar through the air and attach themselves to feet. Soon, it becomes apparent that we're being told this story in reverse sequence: we've begun with a morning-after, and we're tracing the course of a date from its conclusion to its beginning. We see the couple in the park, and then meeting in front of the New York City skyline - and then we watch the young man walk backward from his own house, slip on (off) a wedding ring, and return to his wife.

Since coming to national attention in 2004, the young singer-songwriter with an international profile has done more work for charitable projects than almost any other musician we can think of. Jelen's concern about the perils of climate change compelled him to join the Natural Resources Defense Council and Wildlife Works; not satisfied with that, he's launched his own Ben Jelen Foundation for the Environment. His website (link below) offers energy-saving tips and links to online petitions alongside the usual photos, tour dates and MP3s. He's toured for Rock The Vote and the Save Darfur Foundation, and contributed tracks to benefit CDs for the RAINN Network and Amnesty International. His engagement with public issues is not superficial: his conscience is what compels him to pick up his guitar and broadcast his message to the globe. That said, there's nothing preachy or astringent about the bright, striking Ex-Sensitive. Jelen and mega-platinum producer Linda Perry (Pink, Christina Aguilera, too many others to list) have crafted a multifaceted set; one that functions simultaneously as a confessional statement of personal honesty and as a critique of a world out of balance. The songs on Ex-Sensitive are inspired by Jelen's charitable work, but they're deliberately left ambiguous: he could be singing about a deteriorating biosphere or a deteriorating relationship. "Wreckage", the latest single, is a perfect example - "we've got to listen!", he demands, before imploring his audience to assess particulars and put the pieces back together. Without tipping his hand, Jelen gently invites us to acknowledge that our world is in disarray, and asks us to "crawl out of the wreckage" of the past few years and into a more enlightened future. To us, it seems like the perfect song for an election year: a confession of misdeeds, a statement of hope, faith in the possibility of a fresh start. Jelen's message is wedded to an aching melody and a gorgeous arrangement. "Wreckage" is full of moving, heartfelt lyrics, a passionately-penned verse, and a rafter-raising chorus. Even the jaded (and stridently apolitical) critical establishment has begun to take notice of this galvanizing singer: in a four-and-a-half-star review in the All-Music Guide, Jo-Ann Greene calls Jelen "an Everyman with a cause", and praises his mission to "connect with each and every one of us, and help reconnect us to each other." The clip for "Wreckage" is similarly ambitious. It marks the directorial debut for Linda Perry, and like everything she touches, it is an immediate winner. We watch the sun set on a beautiful seascape - but Ben Jelen isn't in a position to appreciate it. Instead, he's inside, seated behind the desk at something like a personal command-and-control center. The camera-friendly singer hammers out his words on a vintage manual typewriter, and manipulates the ribbon and the carriage in time with the "Wreckage" backbeat. But this is no old-school workspace - in a visual metaphor for the continuity of technology, the old Royal is wired to a bevy of flat-panel screens. The words he's typing appear on one of them; the others are filled with images of current events and environmental wonders. This is, the video seems to suggest, the way we access the world: we see through a screen darkly, gathering our impressions as best as we can, and reacting to what reaches us. By the middle of the clip, he's on his back, overwhelmed by the rapid-fire images. But he rallies, turns on a silver spigot to water an indoor garden, and watches as the screens fill with inspirational messages.

In their hometown of San Antonio, they're already stars (they're favorites of the City alternative weekly, the Express-News, and the much-read S.A. Rocks weblog); in the rest of the Lone Star State, they're spoken of by music aficionados as a group on the rise. Now, the wide release of their self-titled debut seems certain to show the nation what Texas already knows: Blowing Trees have the sound, the talent, and the live energy to connect with a mass audience. Their intelligent pop-rock is already deep, layered and nuanced; on Blowing Trees, Producer Dave Castell (Blue October) has given these powerful songs a bright, radio-ready aura.

The quartet was, without a doubt, one of the most discussed bands at South By Southwest. This year, Blowing Trees rocked both the Fuse and the PureVolume showcase, and were selected as one of the Featured Emerging Artists in the corporate-sponsored SXSW sweepstakes. Since March, the band's reputation has spread by word of mouth - Matt Pinfield is a fan, and has played their music on his Sirius Radio show -and Blowing Trees has chosen to cement their foundation by touring Texas relentlessly. Those who'll pack the upcoming shows will experience a rare treat: a band of sharp young writers who marry thought-provoking lyrics and singalong melodies to a majestic tapestry of sound.

A band as conscious of detail as Blowing Trees might seem like a good bet in the studio, and the aesthetic success of their ambitious debut has justified the faith of their many rabid fans. Dramatic as Mars Volta, cinematic as the Flaming Lips or Arcade Fire, and as carefully-conceptualized as Wish You Were Here, Blowing Trees also contains many pop charms. "The Day The World Left Me", the lead single, is quintessential Blowing Trees: a message song appointed with the proper balance of grit and gloss (and a fist-pumping chorus, too!) Frontman Chris Maddin delivers the lyric in a howl of passion; it's bracing, and moving, and it announces the coming of a singer with something to shout about.

If there was any doubt, the clip for "The Day The World Left Me" can put it to rest: Blowing Trees are a terrific-looking band, too. Playing in an old warehouse, they hurl the song at the camera, demonstrating the kinetics and the intensity that have made them such a live attraction. Directors Emma Branch and Carlos Cruz Sol position Maddin directly beneath a hanging lamp, and capture the shadows that travel across his face as he sings; he looks more than a bit unhinged, and it's awfully compelling. Elsewhere, in a junkyard crammed with electronic equipment, two hapless men doze, putter around, and fuss with wires. Shots of Maddin playing guitar are juxtaposed with those of a white-bearded old man in a chair hammering away on his own acoustic - all while another one watches the sands pour through an hourglass. Later, these images of helplessness and decay are counterposed with other: a teenaged boy wearing homemade wings, two boys wrestling in gas masks. It's ominous, weird, symbolically-rich and undeniably compelling - much like Blowing Trees's captivating music.

Who says that music needs to be sung in English to be successful in America? During the past few years, the J-Rock movement has proven otherwise. J-Rock - performed entirely in Japanese - has claimed a place in the crowded stateside market. And J-Rock artists haven't merely played at their own well-attended shows and festivals; increasingly, heavy bands from Japan have shared bills with the some of the biggest names in American metal. Alongside Atreyu and Avenged Sevenfold, this year's RockStar Taste Of Chaos tour will feature several thunderous Japanese rock bands. And whenever a major J-Rock bill is assembled in the United States, you can count on one thing: D'espairsRay will be part of the show. The Japanese four-piece is no stranger to these shores. They've already familiarized rock audiences with their music on their recent American tour with Florida's Genitorturers (they were one of the last bands ever to play at CBGB), and they rocked the massive JRock Revolution show held in Los Angeles last year. Away from America, they're already stars: in Asia, their records are beststellers, and they followed up their turn at the '06 Wacken Open Air metal festival in Germany with a swing through Scandinavia. Their international profile - and their compelling sound - has placed D'espairsRay at the very forefront of the J-Rock movement. Upon hearing the band, it's immediately apparent why they've connected with stateside audiences. On their most recent full length offering, Mirror, there's nothing exotic, difficult, or off-putting about the music they make; if anything, D'espairsRay sounds and feels more like a classic U.S. hard rock band than most American groups working this territory. Beyond the foreign-language lyric, "Squall", their current single, is simply a dramatic, ambitious, heartfelt, and sharply-performed piece of radio rock. You might not be able to understand exactly what D'espairsRay is singing about, but frontman Hizumi is such a talented communicator - and so emotionally forthright - that you're certain to connect with the song. In fact, if you aren't paying close attention, you might not even realize that Hizumi is telling his story in another language. You don't need to know any Japanese to feel the force of this "Squall" D'espairsRay first made their name in their homeland as part of the "visual kei" insurgency - an underground music uprising that emphasized theatrics, costuming, make-up, and spectacular stage sets. Thus, it's not surprising that the group is terrific to look at. The four members of D'espairsRay are tall, slim, cool, and stylish, and they are - rightfully - the focus of the "Squall" clip. The stark and chilling video, is, again, not so different from what you'd expect to see from a first-rate modern rock band: it's just been better executed. A beautiful young woman wanders through the rubble surrounding an abandoned and crumbling factory; the expression on her face is serene, knowing, mysterious. Inside the distressed structure, D'espairsRay roars out their song. Hizumi sits in a leather chair and stares out the fractured, cloudy industrial windows. Shot in cold greens and muted greys, the "Squall" clip matches the desperate, epic, slightly futuristic tone of the song. This decaying world is strange, yes - but it's oddly familiar, too.

For more than a decade, Chris Corner has been treading the fine line between commercial pop and electronic experimentation. A tightrope-walk it surely is - but the synth auteur and explorer of the human unconscious has never once lost his balance. In the mid-Nineties, his hits with the Sneaker Pimps climbed the charts on both sides of the Atlantic; more recently, he's relocated to decadent Berlin and released dark, personal electropop albums under the name IAMX (a play, perhaps, on Becoming X, the title of the Sneaker Pimps bestseller?). The IAMX singles have been as irresistible as the Pimps's were - and the album tracks have been every bit as challenging, suggestive, synth-warped, and dramatic.

And Corner is no studio recluse, either. IAMX doubles as a ferocious live synthrock band that has featured members of Nemo and Robots In Disguise. Corner is an acrobatic and energetic frontman with a taste for provocative costuming, and his commanding stage presence - amplified by his outrageous makeup and accessories - has become a thing of legend among fans of ambitious electropop. In his characteristic top hat and black spangles, the IAMX singer cuts an unforgettable figure; this has, as you'd imagine, made him a natural for music video. His subject matter, too, is well-suited for video clips: Corner sings about alternative sexuality, mortality, obsession, chemical dependence, fashion, and lust. Notably, Corner shot two equally provocative clips for "Missile", the lead single from the IAMX debut; in the first, he lay naked in a bathtub, head submerged, with the words "help me" taped over his lips; in the second, Sue Denim of Robots In Disguise sexually dominates him and forces him to ingest a possibly fatal pill.

The Alternative, the most recent IAMX release, is similarly edgy and compelling. It's also been popular in Europe for more than a year, spawning several hit club singles - including the bracing "Spit It Out". Here, Corner marries a dark tale of sexual compulsion and pain to the sweetest melody he's ever written, and just to push the perversity even further, he croons it all in a butter-smooth voice. "If you like it violent", he purrs to his lover, "we can play rough and tumble".

Sue Denim returns to play the girlfriend in Hans Hmmers, Jr.'s combustible clip for "Spit It Out"; her hair and makeup is only slightly less eye-catching than Corner's is. But the IAMX frontman is the star of this show, as he dances atop the crumbling staircase of a Berlin mansion that has fallen into ruin. Graffiti stains the steps, the doors, and the rooms of the building, and shafts of sunlight slash through holes in the walls and ceiling. Corner sings much of the song straight to his partner - but in other shots, he's in front of the mirror, addressing his come-ons to himself. Images of the winsome Denim are rapidly replaced by others of Corner's own face; in one memorable shot, his own head slides up to eclipse hers. Is she simply a substitution for his own destructive desires?; might this entire fantasy be purely auto-erotic?

When K'naan talks about refugee status, he's not being metaphorical or hyperbolic: the Somali-born musician fled the mean streets of Mogadishu in 1991. The Siad Barre regime was, at that time, in full collapse, and although Somalia has known periods of relative peace since then, there's been no full restoration of government. From his musical base in Toronto, K'naan has acted as a Somali spokesperson in exile - in '99, he even read a confrontational spoken-word piece in front of the United Nations. But although he raps eloquently about the problems of the African Horn (and sometimes even dares to use his native language on record), his pleas for political reconciliation and an end to pointless violence resonate for progressives and egalitarians in all countries. When he writes about "Strugglin'" to make his voice heard, he's not just bemoaning the state of the contemporary airwaves - he is speaking for every kid living in an underdeveloped nation ignored by the mass media. His experiences have given his music a moral authority rare in contemporary hip-hop, and authorize him to speak out. "Soobax", the propulsive liberation anthem that introduced K'naan to his international audience, was an incredibly courageous broadside against belligerent African warlords who have rendered Mogadishu virtually unlivable. Some naysayers suggested that the rapper's specificity and intellectual precision would turn off first-world audiences. But "Soobax" became one of the most copiously downloaded songs of 2005 (and was recognized by mtvU as such), and The Dusty Foot Philosopher, K'naan's debut album, won the Juno Award for Best Canadian Rap Album of the year. Since that initial success, the emcee has become a genuine international musical voice, recording with Nelly Furtado, M1 of Dead Prez, Mos Def, The Roots, and many others. The Dusty Foot On The Road, K'naan's latest set, is at once more raw, more exciting, more spiritual, and more hardcore than his heralded debut. Tellingly, it features several live tracks - K'naan, whose name means "traveler", is renowned for his explosive concert performances. As lead single "Strugglin'" demonstrates, he's improved on the mic, too: his performance here feels assured, energetic, and deft. If "Soobax" was the undeniable underground hit - the cut that sets the boomboxes ablaze - "Strugglin'" is K'naan's coy overture to mainstream radio. Without making any compromises whatsoever, he's managed to craft a track for the charts. We're comfortable calling the "Soobax" clip one of the most stunning music videos we've ever encountered. Shot almost entirely in the African Horn, the clip captured footage of places that Americans rarely see: Kenyan cities, shantytowns and countryside, abandoned supermarkets, playing fields, and war zones. Again, the Somali rapper was giving voice to the voiceless, and turning international attention to the condition of his homeland. Though it's been shot in the First World, the "Strugglin'" video is no less breathtaking - or compassionate. Opening with footage of K'naan reciting his fiery poetry over traditional African instrumentation, it switches to interior shots of typical low-income housing. The rapper takes us on a guided tour of his urban neighborhood, showing us the barbershops, the tower-blocks, CD stores, underground pool-halls, sneakers hanging over telephone wires. Throughout, his camera focuses on the faces of the people he encounters: serious faces, determined faces, stop-you-in-your-tracks faces, each one bearing marks of some unnamed, individual struggle. It's the connection he makes with each of these neighbors that he's dramatizing - his own unerring ability to identify with the longing, the striving, the passion of the dispossessed.

Here, Landon is dressed as a paramilitary band in action; Landon herself wears a button-up uniform, a short skirt to match, and some very guerrilla-chic red boots. As in the "Only 20" clip, the musicians look like they're having a hoot: the Landon guitarist stalks around the desert in fatigues, the drummer takes his "combat" cigarette to the kit, and the frontwoman gets to gleefully stab the backs and snap the necks of her opponents. "Intelligence is the best weapon", she sings, echoing the line in "Only 20" when she explains that because of her appearance, people tend to underestimate her cleverness. Not for long.