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Ethel, a string quartet that plays amplified music and often collaborates with rock music composers, is making waves in the music world. The group's debut CD is called Ethel. NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Todd Reynolds and Mary Rowell, violinists for the band.

My Morning Jacket releases It Still Moves, a new album reflecting a focus on songwriting and narrative. The band hails from Shelbyville, Ky., and its sound has roots in Southern rock. Tom Moon has a review.

Conrad Praetzel and Robert Powell take old American ballads and folk songs and transform them into modern works. Their band is called Clothesline Revival. Chris Nickson reviews the album Of My Native Land.

The Magnetic Fields started as a cult phenomenon, but singer Stephin Merritt has taken the band well beyond its indie beginnings in Manhattan's Lower East Side. At Zankel Hall, the group plays songs from its acclaimed CDs, 69 Love Songs and i.

One of Mexico's most popular bands has a new song deploring the unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez. The hit song, "The Women of Juarez," is getting international airplay and attracting human rights activists, much to the chagrin of local politicians. NPR's Gerry Hadden reports.

President Bush often gets a big round of applause when he says small businesses should be able to band together to buy insurance. But fewer people realize his plan to let them do that is opposed by the nation's governors, the insurance industry, and half the Senate's Republicans. NPR's Julie Rovner reports.

Musician Gary Nunez and his band, Plena Libre, revive and re-invent the rhythmic Puerto Rican musical style known as plena.

Anima, a group from Brazil, mixes its classical training and early music experience with an interest in Brazilian folk music and instruments. The band will tour the United States later this month. Susan Kaplan, of member station WFCR, reports. (7:45) Anima's CD's, entitled Especiarias and Espiral Do Tempo (Time Spiral) are available from MCD World Music. Websites in Spanish:Especiarias and Espiral Do Tempo

Charles de Ledesma reviews a new CD from Egyptian singer Natacha Atlas, called Gedida. She lived in Britain for a number of years, performing with the band Transglobal Underground. Now she's moved back to Cairo, and is integrating Egypt's indigenous music into her own brand of Western dance music.

Oh, Inverted World is the latest album from the Albuquerque pop-quartet The Shins. The band has been recording on independent labels for years before this, their first widespread release. Nick Mirov has a review. (4:00) The Shins' Oh, Inverted World is on Sub-Pop Records 2001, SPCD 550. See www.subpop.com.