Until a couple weeks ago, Brandi Carlile was one of those artists Border Radio had heard about, but never actually heard. That's all changed with the release of her self-titled debut for Columbia Records, which hit stores this week. Her soaring voice has elicited comparisons to everyone from Roy Orbison to Jeff Buckley, and to our ears she even recalls eccentric Canadian art-folkie Mary Margaret O'Hara. Regardless, the transcendental singing and finely crafted, melancholy originals served up by this Maple Valley, WA resident belie her tender age of just 23. You can catch her live next Saturday, July 16, when she opens for Chris Isaak at Summer Nights on South Lake Union.

Usually, hearing the words "Amor" and "El Corazón" in the same sentence signals that you've stumbled across one of those steamy Latin soap operas on the Univision channel. But this week, the combo means something else—although you probably will walk away smitten once you hear the music of Naïm Amor, a French expatriate who now calls Tucson, AZ home. Amor plays El Corazón this Friday, July 8. He has previously toured with notables Giant Sand and the Handsome Family, as well as collaborating with PJ Harvey affiliate John Parish. The handful of selections we heard from Amor's latest, as-yet-unreleased album, produced by Joey Burns of Calexico, featured an odd-yet-addictive fusion of '60s French pop, garage rock, and Duane Eddy–style twang.

If you're a fan of the blues, start doing your stretches and knee-bends now: You have a marathon week ahead. On Friday, July 8, Highway 99 welcomes singer-songwriter/drummer Doyle Bramhall, the rollicking Texan best known for co-writing the Stevie Ray Vaughan classic "Life by the Drop" (which he re-recorded for his own 2004 Yep Roc release, Fitchburg Street). Saturday, July 9, and Sunday, July 10, you'll want to swing by the Triple Door, which hosts the all-star Chicago Blues Reunion ensemble, a sextet of instrumentalists and singers who helped usher in the genre's electric age in the 1960s, working with artists like Janis Joplin, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and Canned Heat. Monday, take a nap. Rounding out the schedule, Grammy Award-winning guitarist John Hammond, touring in support of his 2005 release In Your Arms Again, hits Dimitriou's Jazz Alley on Tuesday, July 12, and Wednesday, July 13.

Border Radio has long been afraid of newfangled technology, ever since that robot went berserk and tried to kill us on a second-grade field trip. Nevertheless, we were delighted to discover an entertaining website that does not involve dirty pictures, Tom Cruise, or blogging. Turtle's "78 RPM" Jukebox (www.turtleserviceslimited.org/jukebox.htm) features free, legal downloads transferred from 78 RPM discs recorded between 1900 and 1930. Who needs iTunes when you can load up with "Yes! We Have No Bananas," "Second Hand Rose," and our fave, "Since Mother Goes to Movie Shows," a 1916 ditty by the Peerless Quartet, about how domesticity has gone to the dogs, now that matriarchs are bewitched by moving pictures. ■