We're already in the thick of year-end list season, which much like the Christmas-shopping season seems to creep a little further into November with each passing year. The B Side staff will be providing a ton of end-of-2011 goodness in our December 29 issue, but in the meantime Jessica Hopper has provided us with a selection of releases that you may have missed from acts that "did more than recycle the familiar, instead looking forward or culling sounds from unlikely inspirations."

Over in Gossip Wolf, Hopper and J.R. Nelson dish out news on changes at Pitchfork, Pavement-related goings-on, and a reunion from a band you probably haven't heard of but which spawned a bunch you probably have. Three Beats lets us know what's up with the Old Town School of Folk Music, local metal supergroup Chrome Waves, and the reliably weird Lovely Little Girls. This week's Artist on Artist hooks up Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and guitarist-about-town Jim Elkington for a convo about guitarin'. The Secret History of Chicago Music sheds a little light on insanely obscure psychedelic folk act O.W.L. And Soundboard recommends shows by the Bad Plus, the Mighty Diamonds, Skeletonwitch, the Great Society Mind Destroyers, Sharon Lewis, Hamid Drake & Michael Zerang, and more.