May 7, 2013 – Who: Laura Mvula, the U.K.'s latest diva export, was shortlisted for the career-making BRIT Awards before she'd even released a proper album. The buzz-crazed English press have made much of her unconventional pairing of neo-soul and orchestral pop, while her stateside performances at SXSW, alongside her big band, turned more than a few into true believers. Mvula, 26, begins touring the U.S. and U.K. this month in advance of the release of her debut LP, Sing to the Moon. Despite all the "Next Winehouse" chatter, Mvula is humble and only a little phased by the attention. "I am writhing in the wave of shock," she says. "At the moment, everything is happening so quickly. It's quite overwhelming."From Walkman to Discman and Beyond: Mvula grew up under the tutelage of a jazz-obsessed dad who — though strict about what she could listen to — gave her a thorough musical education.

March 5, 2013 – Who: The 33-year-old, Nashville-born guitarist William Tyler has played with Lambchop for 13 years, while also serving as an occasional sideman for everyone from Bonnie Prince Billy to Wooden Wand and Silver Jews. But the babyfaced Tyler is now out on his own. In March, he makes his Merge debut with Impossible Truth, his second album of acoustic guitar instrumentals. Augmenting nimble six- and 12-string acoustic picking with the occasional electric whinny, his work picks up where another son of the South, Leo Kottke, left off.Letting His Fingers Do The Talking: Though there are no lyrics being sung, Tyler comes bearing a message, the result of a personal obsession: the destruction of Los Angeles. "I was on tour with Wooden Wand and we were opening a West Coast tour for Swans. I had three books — Cadillac Desert, Ecology of Fear, and Hotel California — that I was juggling.

January 30, 2013 – Since ending her two-year tenure as guitarist for Titus Andronicus, Amy Rebecca Klein's life has shaken out to being a little less illustrious but much more artistically rewarding. After a year in the studio with her collaborator, drummer Catherine TKCQ, she has taken her much-anticipated next step: the duo's din-pop debut as Hilly Eye, Reasons to Live, a buzzing, bruising, dispatch from Brooklyn basements, combining Sleater-Kinney melodies with the gnash of mid-'00s noise rock. Klein spoke to SPIN about giving up indie fame for real life and what exactly are her reasons for living.When you were thinking about leaving Titus, was there anything that was holding you back from that decision? I loved being in the band. Being in that band opened up my whole world; it caused me to think about myself in a totally different way than I had before.

January 17, 2013 – For the sake of this interview, Tegan and Sara and I are going to get incredibly high — but first we must clear security. As soon as the twins take off their bulky winter coats and place them on a conveyor belt for screening, a security guard recognizes them and giddily asks if I can take a picture of him plus the duo with his phone. A tall 20-something white dude in a cheap suit, the guard hunches down so as to be on the same level as the women bracketing him, who light up perfect, practiced smiles. Sara insists that being recognized in public rarely happens. Maybe she's just displaying a modest Canadian nature, but she and Tegan are spotted twice more over the following hour.

December 6, 2012 – Whether you admire her go-for-it ambition and wildly layered cultural references or think she's a cutesy walking meme with an annoying penchant for appropriation, it's hard to deny that Grimes inhabited (and sometimes infuriated) the 2012 zeitgeist like few others. With January's release of her third album, neon synth-pop Rorschach test Visions (4AD), the airy-voiced 24-year-old born Claire Boucher kickstarted a year that took her from Canadian curiosity to omnipresent enigma; the record also reached the top half of the Billboard 200 albums chart. In this revealing, wide-ranging conversation, Grimes takes on her critics, opens up about her troubled past, and looks back on an extremely eventful 12 months — pussy rings included.Don't miss all of SPIN's 2012 Year in Music: 50 Best Albums, Band of the Year, Artist of the Year, and more.It's been a big year for you.

November 15, 2012 – Bikini Kill were more than a band — and intentionally so. They were a beacon and a call to arms. They were "Girl you can do this, too" writ large. The band initially began as a radical feminist trio comprised of vocalist Kathleen Hanna, scene-nexus drummer Tobi Vail, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and later, only boy Billy Karren on guitar. Their sound was remarkably dynamic, tough and terse, sloppy and surfy — a menacing backdrop to their scream-along ideology.The Olympia, Washington-based group became the primary party organ for the Riot Grrrl movement, a loose network of young female musicians, writers, and activists organized in opposition to the patriarchy inside and outside of the D.I.Y. punk underground.

October 9, 2012 – The story of Kendrick Lamar is not the story of a rapper from Compton. It might be the story of the most important rapper since Jay-Z. It might be the story of how hip hop got real in 2012. But the only story that Kendrick Lamar wants to tell is how he got out. Lamar's major-label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city (Top Dawg/Aftermath/Interscope), is a totemic memoir to mark the distance from where he came. It is, says Lamar, about how "everything in the dark comes to light."On the cover of the album is a Polaroid dating from 1991. Lamar identifies himself as "baby Kendrick," even though he was pushing five when it was taken. He sits nestled in the lap of an uncle who is throwing a gang sign with the same arm that's wrapped around his nephew. On the table sits a 40-ounce and a baby bottle; baby Kendrick is wide-eyed, staring directly into the camera.

August 4, 2012 – The Lollapalooza gates were reopened at 6 p.m. CST after the festival was suspended for almost three hours due to inclement weather. The evening's line-up has been bumped back an hour from original set times as city officials have extended the concert's curfew to accommodate the rain delay. The new and updated schedule has been posted on the official Lollapalooza website. The National Weather Service issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the Chicago area with a chance of hail, highs winds, and flash flooding until 8 p.m. Shortly after 3 p.m,. P.A.s were cut at the concert and it was announced that due to weather conditions, the concert patrons were asked to exit calmly — which was largely the case, though some were spotted climbing the fence. For hours, approximately 100,000 concertgoers we left on the street, wondering if they will have a chance to return.

June 27, 2012 – WHO: Bushwick, Brooklyn five-piece led by New School dropout Samantha Urbani. Their slinky quasi-funk hit "I'm His Girl" features Urbani, 24, strutting like the baddest bitch in the borough, and earning them half a million YouTube views plus loads of label interest. Manifest!, their debut full-length, reveals the band's ecumenical tastes with both low-key dance jams and shimmering psych-outs. Its first single, "Mind Control," debuted as the "Hottest Record in the World" on BBC Radio One. SOUNDS LIKE: A perfect summertime mixtape from a friend with a killer record collection. Though their early singles were lean and sultry and fondly recalled "Buffalo Stance," the rest of Manifest! is all over the map — stoned guitar haze, clipped electro-beats, new-wave organs, and post-punk mashing and pip-pipping, all anchored by Urbani's too-cool coo.

April 4, 2012 – Who: Willis Earl Beal was discovered by Found magazine after he posted flyers offering to play a song for anyone who called his cellphone. The South Chicago crooner/outsider artist started singing four years ago to fend off boredom during a homeless stint and realized he might be on to something when passersby started dropping him dollars for each performance. Though his curious backstory has helped him garner some online attention, the furious charm of his lo-fi home recordings has landed him a four-album deal with XL imprint Hot Charity. Sounds Like: A weathered D’Angelo pouring his heart out over tapes of found-sound collage, or a new-jack Tom Waits jamming on instruments collected from Dumpsters. Beal’s proper debut, Acousmatic Sorcery, is the sound of someone figuring out what they’re doing as they go along, burying trembling soul ballads in atonal bump’n’hiss.