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.

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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)

From Q2 Music, take a tour of composer Jherek Bischoff’s childhood home: a tiny sailboat docked in a Seattle harbor.

How does a very rich and eminently successful artist with a superstar-all-from-a-home-movie girlfriend call us out? ‘Black Skinhead’ is somebody banging on your door in the middle of the night, hurtling out of Ye’s metal-plated face, predicting reactions before it’s halfway over. He rides an industrial-sounding, stadium-sized beat, calling Chicago, ‘Chiraq’ in a grainy echo. He associated himself with Malcolm X on ‘Good Morning,’ but then it was a joke. This time he’s serious. He says he’s going 400 mph, which we believe – he’s taken corners on two wheels on live TV before.

— Frannie Kelly on Kanye West’s two new tracks, which point fingers in every direction, include himself

First Listen Live! Watch Queens of the Stone Age perform …Like Clockwork in its entirety, then tackle an assortment of older material, in a sold-out show at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on May 23.

Photo: Nora Lezano