All Songs Considered on HD2

It's been a while since we heard new music from Spiritualized's Jason Pierce (a.k.a. J Spaceman). After the one-two punch of nearly dying from double-pneumonia in 2005 and going through six months of chemotherapy for a degenerative liver disease, Pierce is back in a big way with "Hey Jane," a chugging nine-minute song which draws from the classic rock of bands like The Velvet Underground.

This week on All Songs Considered, Bob Boilen and Jacob Ganz go globe-hopping to find new music from familiar faces: Canada's Japandroids, with punk music that doesn't just want to punch you in the face; New York's Dirty Projectors, whose members mix familiar elements from different eras to create something new and strange; and London's Hot Chip

All Songs Considered is Austin-bound! On this week's show, host Bob Boilen, producer and co-host Robin Hilton, editor Stephen Thompson and NPR Music critic Ann Powers talk about the bands they're most excited to see this year at South by Southwest. The four-day music festival kicks off on Wednesday, March 14 in Austin, Texas, and features roughly 2,000 artists, spanning countless genres.

On this edition of All Songs Considered, we hear a stunning new song from Regina Spektor's upcoming album What We Saw From the Cheap Seats. We've also got Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, who joins Polish avant-garde composer Krzysztof Penderecki for a new collection of strange and beautiful classical pieces.