From cocktails to Yiddish.

Billed as the first-ever gay and lesbian lounge music compilation, Fruit Cocktail (Streeter) boasts a stellar line-up that includes some of our most respected artists from the worlds of jazz, Latin, and cabaret--from Ian Shaw and Steve Kowalczyk to Tom Robinson, Michael Callen, Holly Near, and comic-turned-Broadway star Lea DeLaria.

Think of it as a queer three-ring circus. On We Know Where You Live (Trip), the Maine-based seven-member Velvet Mafia paints a surreal portrait of gay life in America. From the quirky dance anthem "Mona Lisa" to the band's hard-hitting look into the mind of a junkie, "Poppies in Springtime," the stories told within this carnival of gay souls are sure to shake you till you rattle and roll.

Listening to The Well (Xenophile), the new CD by the world-famous Klezmatics, may find you with one foot firmly planted in the past while the other leaps toward the future. Playing Jewish-American roots music with a postmodern adventurousness, the band has joined renowned Israeli diva Chava Alberste to create a song cycle set to the verse of some of the 20th century's greatest Yiddish poets. Longtime k.d. lang collaborator Ben Mink produces.