I try to show that: Look, I came from something. I don’t necessarily wanna stay there. So therefore, that’s what music was all about, was the escape. So I want to teach everybody out there the same thing. Sometimes, in order to inspire, you have to let them know exactly where you’re from, so that they know exactly that you know where you’re going.

— Miami rapper Pitbull on escaping the drug trade through music

Boards of Canada, “Reach for the Dead” from Tomorrow’s Harvest (out June 11).

See ya tonight at the Queens of the Stone Age show? Watch the band play …Like Clockwork in its entirety, with opening act Alain Johannes, at 10:30 p.m. ET.

Unpredictable and often mysterious, James Blake’s songs are intense and riveting, hopeful and thoughtful. Watch the singer perform 90 minutes of breathtakingly emotional music, recorded live at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.

Mechanical engineer and sculptor Tristan Shone, who records as Author & Punisher, is a master of machines. He’s built a robotic entourage — throttles, knobs, rails and all — that responds to MIDI/USB controllers and makes for-real industrial doom metal.

Hear the crushing “Melee” from Women & Children now.

Photo: Marilia Maschion

100 years after The Rite of Spring premiere, watch Imani Winds shrink Igor Stravinsky down to size in a quintet take at the Tiny Desk.

poptech:

laughingsquid:

Teenage Girl Nonchalantly Plays Van Halen’s ‘Eruption’ Guitar Solo

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

No big deal, just shreddin’.

From Q2 Music, watch an intimate concert inspired by Nico Muhly’s exciting, intrigue-filled opera Two Boys, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera.

Photos: Ebru Yildiz for NPR

Valkyries, golden rings, the holy grail… Wagner was epic, not to mention complicated. For the bicentennial, we asked an expert about the five musical episodes that keep the composer’s extraordinary dramas in our lives today.

Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Julia Holter “World,” from Loud City Song (out Aug. 20)