Photo: Chico DeLuigi

Some venture to the arctic for relaxation, others for new material. Such was the case with Antony Hegarty, leader of Antony and the Johnsons, whose recent trip way up north — where he saw "disoriented and dirty" polar bears — helped inspire the political- and eco-minded songs on his new EP, Another World. (A full album, The Crying Light, arrives in January.) "There's been a catastrophic shift in our sense of the planet," says Hegarty, "and I wanted to go on the record about certain things."

Check out all of the albums in the 2008 Fall Music Preview