journal.nonesuch.com

k.d. lang, Live in London, Proves "Watershed" Worth the Wait

Last night, London's Hammersmith Apollo played host to k.d. lang's first London performance in four years, and, says the Times (UK) in its four-star review of the show, "her extraordinary vocal range" was on full display.

"With her voice soaring to silky heights," writes the Times' David Sinclair, "she set off on a succession of beautifully manicured ballads from the new album," Watershed. And, he continues, "with the pop world suddenly in thrall to a bevy of young, female torch singers, here is a star who really knows the stylistic and emotional ropes of the genre."

To read the review, visit entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

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The Evening Standard also gives the show four stars, with reviewer André Paine praising k.d.'s "perfectly pitched vocal" and calling Watershed "a masterfully understated collection" the singer-songwriter proved "was worth the wait on the evocative 'I Dream of Spring' and the sweetly seductive 'Coming Home.'"

Paine adds kudos for k.d's band, but saves his kindest words for the singer herself. "It was lang's astonishing voice that dominated," he writes: "smooth and smoky, she switched easily from fragile to tumultuous, never being so crude as to simply belt out a tune."

Another highlight of the evening was k.d.'s "magisterial cover" of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," which she recored on Hymns of the 49th Parallel. "It wouldn't have got a more ecstatic reaction," writes Paine, "if Cohen himself had turned up to duet with her."

Read the review at thisislondon.co.uk.

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The Telegraph's David Cheal was also there and found it "glorious." Cheal says that k.d., "crooning in that remarkably assured voice," showed "what lovely stuff" her new songs are made of. That voice, he writes, "remains a wonder to behold."

"Many pass themselves off as 'proper' singers, but lang is one of the few who can really, really sing," says Cheal. Seeing k.d. perform, "there was huge pleasure to be had from the rich, sensual power of her voice."

Read that review at telegraph.co.uk.

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A note: k.d.'s schedule appearance on ITV's This Morning show today has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning. She's slated to appear in the 10-10:30 AM GMT segment, when she'll chat with the show's hosts about the new album.

For more information, visit itv.com.

Video: k.d. lang Interview Series (4 of 6), "Finding the Perfect Love"

This fourth episode of the weeklong video interview series with k.d. lang includes footage of k.d. rehearsing "I Dream of Spring" in advance of its premiere broadcast performance, on the British TV show Parkinson. (The Toronto Globe and Mail has named "I Dream of Spring" an "essential track" and called it "a great song ... sung by a great voice.") Also, in this segment is another Watershed track "Coming Home," which k.d. says is about finding the true self, "coming home to who you really are."

Check the Journal tomorrow for the next episode, "Experiencing Life."

"The Wire" Supports Hometown Through Special Auction

The cast of HBO's The Wire has pitched in to support the Ella Thompson Fund, established by Thompson, a West Baltimore community leader, and the series's creators David Simon and Edward Burns to provide recreation programs to inner-city kids, and the Baltimore Museum of Industry, with a special auction on EBay.

More than 60 items, including autographed Wire merchandise, DVDs, and soundtracks, as well as customized, limited-edition hoodies designed by Jeff Staple Studios, are available for bidding. Bid now on ebay.com to support the efforts of these local institutions aiming to make a difference in The Wire's hometown.

Telegraph: Greenwood Part of "Belle Epoque" of Brit Film Composers

Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood has been praised by the New Yorker as a "revelatory" contribution to the world of film composition, and, writes the Telegraph (UK)'s Adam Sweeting, it just may signal a "Belle Epoque" of British film music.

In the article, Sweeting profiles a crop of British composers now in high demand in Hollywood and looks to explain why the UK has proven to be such a fertile source of top-notch writers.

"There's no single reason why this should be happening now," he concludes, "but the roots of the phenomenon may lie in a cross-breeding of classical tradition with the UK's bubbling cauldron of pop music."

Sweeting signals out the score from Greenwood as "a giant step in his reinvention as an orchestral composer above and beyond his work as Radiohead's guitarist."

You can read the article and listen to "Open Spaces" from the film soundtrack at telegraph.co.uk.

Greenwood's "There Will Be Blood" Makes Alex Ross's "Soundtrack to the City"

On the same day Alex Ross, the New Yorker music critic, enjoyed the Stephen Colbert treatment as a guest on the Colbert Report, Gothamist published an interview with Ross, in which he discusses his new book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century.

In the interview, Ross is asked what he would recommend to someone just learning to explore classical music. To get the full experience suggests both attending a live concert and buying a few representative CDs, including Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's album of Bach cantatas, BWV 82 and 199, and Steve Reich and Musicians playing Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.

As for his current "soundtrack to the city," Ross cites two film scores: Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood and Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi.

To read the interview, visit gothamist.com. To read more of what Alex Ross has to say about Greenwood's score, click here.

Cast Members of "The Wire" Attend Special Signing at NY's HBO Store Today

New York City-area fans of The Wire and its music can meet stars of the series today at the HBO Shop in Manhattan. Cast members will be signing copies of ... and all the pieces matter, music from five years of The Wire; Beyond Hamsterdam, featuring the Baltimore artists' tracks; and DVDs of the first four seasons, all at the HBO Shop at Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street (across from Bryant Park) today at 11:30 AM. Stop by to meet the cast and pick up your copy of the soundtrack the Guardian says inevitably brings with it a "rush of Wire memories." 

Chicago Tribune: Toumani Diabate Proves to Be a "Foremost Musical Ambassador"

Toumani Diabate performed a special solo set last night for a packed crowd at Manhattan's Other Music record store, and he's set to play New York's Bowery Ballroom tonight joined by his full Symmetric Orchestra, with Argentine-born pianist/composer Fernando Otero opening the show. It's sure to be a stellar set, judging by the band's Tuesday night show in Chicago, which the Chicago Tribune says provided some welcome heat to a frigid winter's night.

Reviewing Tuesday's show for the Tribune, writer Aaron Cohen says the Malian kora player's "virtuoso performance" proved "why he is one of his country's foremost musical ambassadors." Writes Cohen of Toumani and his Symmetric Orchestra:

Under Diabate's low-key direction, the combination of electric guitars and funk bass with the kora and equally ancient six-string ngoni sounded like a natural blend, especially during mid-tempo grooves.

Those grooves invariably gave way to Diabate's compelling solos ... His arpeggios showed he can perform cascades of notes while making this flow fit the context of a tune, and holding down the ensemble's rhythmic foundation.

And for the hardy Chicago bunch who "defied snow and subzero windchill" to attend the show, "the warmth behind it all couldn't have been more welcome."

To read the review, visit chicagotribune.com. For tickets to tonight's show in New York, click here. For information on Toumani's forthcoming release, The Mandé Variations, click here.

Rolling Stone: "First-Rate" New Album from k.d. lang

"In 2004, k.d. lang started paying close attention to one damn attractive asset," writes Rolling Stone's James Hunter: "her own voice." Hymns of the 49th Parallel, k.d.'s Nonesuch debut from that year, was "a great collection" that proved to be k.d.'s "creative breakthrough."

Following what Hunter sees as "the explosive growth" of the singer on that album, k.d. returns with Watershed—"first-rate singer-songwriter music" that succeeds in creating "an alluring integration" of the many musical styles from throughout her career. The Rolling Stone review finds Watershed to be full of "charming rightness" and "soulful soprano tone," so that "her work sings."

"With Watershed," Hunter concludes, "k.d. lang does what the gifted and the lucky always should: improve as time passes."

To read the full review, pick up the February 7 issue of Rolling Stone or visit rollingstone.com.

Video: k.d. lang Interview Series (3 of 6), "The Making of 'Watershed'"

On episode three of the k.d. lang video interview series, k.d. explains a bit of the process of making Watershed, her first-ever self-produced record, and the meaning behind its title. Taking a cue from her Buddhist practice, she learned to just write the songs and let them be. One of those songs, "Jealous Dog," the album's closing track, is the featured song on this episode.

Check in tomorrow for episode four, "Finding the Perfect Love.'"

"The Wire" Stars to Appear on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show

Tune in to the Leonard Lopate Show today at noon ET to catch up with stars of HBO's The Wire, Jamie Hector (Marlo Stanfield), pictured at right; Gbenga Akinnagbe (Chris Partlow); and Clarke Peters (Detective Lester Freamon); as well as Blake Leyh, the show’s music supervisor and a co-producer of its two soundtracks, ... and all the pieces matter and Beyond Hamsterdam.

Fans in the New York City area can listen on their radios at 93.9 FM. The show will also be broadcast live online at wnyc.org.

Toumani Diabate Performs Live on MPR's "The Current"

Toumani Diabate is currently making his way across the US as part of a national tour. He performed in Minneapolis earlier this week at the Dakota Jazz Club and, while in town, stopped by the Minnesota Public Radio studios for a live set on The Current.

On the show, Toumani speaks with host Steve Steel about his roots, coming from a long line of kora players, and his past collaborations with a broad range of artists like Taj Mahal, Björk, and Ali Farka Toure. The live set includes the songs "Elyne Road," off the forthcoming album Mande Variations; "Kaira," from his Grammy-winning album with Toure, In the Heart of the Moon; and "Bany," which he dedicates to the King of Mali.

You can listen to the show online at minnesota.publicradio.org.

Toumani Diabate Performs Free Solo Set at Other Music

Toumani Diabate will be giving a free, solo in-store performance at Manhattan's Other Music record store tonight at 8 PM. He'll be playing tomorrow night at New York's Bowery Ballroom with his band, The Symmetric Orchestra, and label mate Fernando Otero opening, but tonight's in-store is Toumani's only solo performance on this US tour.

For more information on tonight's event, visit othermusic.com.

David Byrne's Many Talents Featured in Wall Street Journal Profile

David Byrne has long been a fixture of the New York music and art world, from the early days of the Downtown scene in the '70s, and all along the way has expressed a broad range of interests in his work, through whichever medium he happens to be focusing his talents.

The Wall Street Journal's jazz and pop critic Martin Johnson spoke with David for a feature article about a recent spate of projects to come from the polymath, including his latest Nonesuch release, The Knee Plays featuring New Orleans brass-band music; an exhibit focusing on the art of the chair; and his event at New York's Town Hall examining the use of bikes in the city. Asked whether there's any underlying theme connecting these projects, David tells Johnson: "There probably are, but I'm not really aware of them."

To read the complete article, visit online.wsj.com.

Joshua Redman Performs a Live Birthday Set on XM Radio

Joshua Redman will be celebrating his 39th birthday two days early with a live in-studio performance tonight at 9 PM ET on the Live @ BJ's show on Beyond Jazz, XM Satellite Radio Channel 72. Joshua will play with his Elastic Band, featuring Sam Yahel on keys and Brian Blade on drums. Beyond Jazz will air an encore presentation of the show on Sunday at 7 PM ET.

For more information, visit xmradio.com.

Video: k.d. lang Interview Series (2 of 6), "A Musical Nomad"

In this second of six episodes from the Nonesuch Journal's k.d. lang video interview series, k.d. refers to herself as "just a singer," for whom genres aren't important. For her, singing is about "the mind, body, spirit, sexuality, spirituality." Featured on this episode is the first track off Watershed, "I Dream of Spring," which Sunday Times (UK) music critic Robert Sandall called "the most beautiful song I've heard in the 21st century."

Check in tomorrow for episode three, "The Making of 'Watershed'"

NY Times: "Day Trip" Finds Metheny "At the Peak of His Game"

"The guitarist Pat Metheny has made some of his most engagingly forthright music in trios," writes the New York Times' jazz critic Nate Chinen. So, he continues, "it's no small thing that Day Trip ... is at least as good as any of the others."

Playing alongside bassist Christian McBride and drummer Antonio Sanchez on the just-released album, Metheny "savors the contrast between these proficient sidemen," writes Chinen. "Mr. McBride is a bedrock player, authoritative with tempos; Mr. Sanchez has a way of articulating pulse as a play of current and tide." Added to the mix is Metheny's own stellar playing, which, for Chinen, "conveys a sense of proportion, substance and coherence, along with rigorous clarity; solid benchmarks for any great improviser at the peak of his game."

With that kind of playing on the first Metheny trio record of all original compositions, the music "tenders its own rewards."

To read the review, visit nytimes.com.

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The Boston Globe lists Day Trip as essential listening, with critic Steve Greenlee saying the new album "represents Metheny at his best, creating music of understated sophistication by interacting sublimely with equally talented musicians." Greenlee sees the members of this trio as "three like-minded fellows who revel in their shared experience ... But mostly," he continues, "they remind us why Metheny remains, after more than 30 years, one of the most popular figures in jazz."

To read the complete review, visit boston.com.

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BBC Music magazine weighs in from its print edition with a five-star review, touting the album as "a
tantalising combination of astute musical focus and bracing improvisatory freedom. A triumph."

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In the Times of London, writer John Bungey wittily refers to Day Trip as "one of those Metheny albums of such virtuosity that some would-be jazz guitarists will listen and promptly opt for a simpler option—like playing the spoons, or joining Oasis." The complete review can be found at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

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The Financial Times gives the album four stars, with reviewer Mike Hobart writing that Day Trip

finds Metheny on top form, sailing magnificently with rhythmic precision and a sound that bites over the sparse accompaniment of Christian McBride on bass and drummer Antonio Sanchez. The trio ... play with the effortless intuition that dispels all clutter, delivering top-dollar modern mainstream jazz from tricky-themed hard swingers to acoustic ballads.

The complete review can be found at ft.com.

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In another London publication, the Telegraph, critic Martin Gayford says of the album: "This is delightful stuff." He sees it as something "hard-core jazz listeners" will appreciate, complimenting McBride for his "marvellously deep, rich bass" and calling Metheny's playing "alternately pastorally lyrical and hard-swinging." You can read the review at telegraph.co.uk.

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Back in the States, Billboard calls the record a "fine on-disc debut" for the frequent touring group, with reviewer Dan Ouellette noting how well "the seamless rhythmic mesh" of McBride and Sanchez complements Pat's "fleet-fingered float." That review can be found at billboard.com.

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Day Tip is now available in the Nonesuch Store, with two exclusive live bonus tracks available for download, at no extra charge, with every purchase of the album.

Harp: Magnetic Fields' "Exquisite" New Album Is Year's Best

"Exquisite." That's what Harp magazine calls The Magnetic Fields' Distortion. Reviewing the group's latest album, critic A.D. Amorosi wonders aloud, "2008's best CD already?" The answer: "You bet."

Amorosi describes the album like so: "Sonically, with its twinkling pianos, clipped guitars and stoically thumped tom-toms, the effect is one of Walls of Sound crumbling as one: Phil Spector meets [My Bloody Valentine's] Kevin Shields."

To read the full review, pick up the January/February issue of Harp magazine, or visit harpmagazine.com.

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And on today's episode of NPR's Bryant Park Project, host Alison Stewart deconstructs the distortion behind Distortion, the latest album from The Magnetic Fields, with musician LD Beghtol.

Beghtol's something of an expert on the subject, having performed on the band's 69 Love Songs and written an in-depth book about the seminal album for the 33 1/3 series of musical field guides. On the Bryant Park Project's "Assisted Listen" segment, he explains where all that feedback comes from, how it's made, and how Stephin Merritt's use of distortion compares with the Jesus and Mary Chain sound that inspired it.

To listen to the segment, visit npr.org.

David Byrne to Perform at BAM as Part of Paul Simon Celebration

David Byrne will join Hugh Masekela, Milton Nascimento, Luciana Souza and a number of other artists in celebrating the music of Paul Simon at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) this spring. Byrne will take the stage during the Under African Skies program, held April 9-13, as part of a monthlong BAM residency by Simon titled Love in Hard Times: The Music of Paul Simon. (The April 9 performance is also part of the BAM Spring Gala.) Other programs in the series feature performances by the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Olu Dara, Grizzly Bear, and The Roches.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on February 11. For more information, visit bam.org.

New Yorker: In "There Will Be Blood," Greenwood Creates a "Revelatory," "Unearthly Beautiful Score"

In the latest issue of The New Yorker, the magazine's music critic Alex Ross examines Jonny Greenwood's "unearthly, beautiful score" for There Will Be Blood and finds in it music that is a world apart from the usual film fare.

"There may be no scarcer commodity in modern Hollywood than a distinctive and original film score," Ross suggests, continuing:

Most soundtracks lean so heavily on a few preprocessed musical devices ... that when a composer adopts a more personal language the effect is revelatory: an entire dimension of the film experience is liberated from cliché. So it is with Paul Thomas Anderson's movie There Will Be Blood, which has an unearthly, beautiful score by the young English composer Jonny Greenwood. ... [A]s Orson Welles once said of Bernard Herrmann’s contribution to Citizen Kane, the music does 50 per cent of the work.

Complementing Daniel Day-Lewis's bravura performance as rising oil baron Daniel Plainview, Greenwood's score plays a significant role in the development of that character. "The coalescence of a wide range of notes into a monomaniacal unison," writes Ross, "may tell us most of what we need to know about the crushed soul of the future tycoon." Of the music, he says:

Greenwood writes rugged open-interval motifs ... mechanically churning Bartókian ostinatos ... primitivist drumming ... and long-limbed, sadly ecstatic, Messiaen-like melodies ... It's hard to think of a recent Hollywood production in which music plays such an active role.

In his work with Radiohead, Greenwood has created "a fascinating synthesis of 20th-century sounds," according to Ross, "avant-garde Romanticism, you could call it," and with Popcorn Superhet Receiver, a piece featured in the film score's tracks "Henry Plainview" and "Proven Lands," Greenwood has created his "most ambitious score to date." The piece, says Ross, "has an elegiac air," one that

may explain why the work has such a powerful effect in There Will Be Blood, which, beyond the melodrama of Daniel Plainview's external rise and internal collapse, shows a primeval American landscape on the brink of violent transformation ... [I]f the smeared string glissandos on the soundtrack suggest liquid welling up from underground, the accompanying dissonances communicate a kind of interior, inanimate pain. The cellos cry out most wrenchingly when Plainview scratches his name on a claim, preparing to bleed the land.

To read Ross's article, pick up the latest issue of The New Yorker or visit newyorker.com. To listen to three tracks from the score, including "Proven Lands," visit nonesuch.com/twbb. To purchase the soundtrack, with three exclusive bonus downloads, visit the Nonesuch Store.

Video: k.d. lang Interview Series (1 of 6), "My Favorite Things: A Life in Song"

Today, the Nonesuch Journal launches a weeklong series of video interviews with k.d. lang, in which the singer, songwriter, and now producer discusses her forthcoming Nonesuch release, Watershed. The album will be available in the Nonesuch Store on February 5, and each weekday until then, we'll have a new webisode from the interview, with song clips off the record.

In this initial episode, k.d. refers to Watershed as the culmination of favorite sounds and musical styles from throughout her career. She acknowledges the music teacher who first encouraged her to sing and reveals some very different career plans her mother once had for her. Featured on this episode is the song "Shadow and the Frame" from Watershed.

Check back tomorrow for episode two, "A Musical Nomad."

Cast Members of "The Wire" to Attend Special Signing at NY's HBO Store Thursday

As the Guardian recently wrote, listening to The Wire soundtrack ... and all the pieces matter inevitably brings with it a "rush of Wire memories." This week, fans of the show and its music in New York City can enjoy that rush all the more when cast members from the series stop by the HBO Shop to sign copies of the soundtracks and DVDs of the first four seasons.

Come to the HBO Shop at 1100 Sixth Avenue (across from Bryant Park) this Thursday at 11:30 AM to meet the show's stars and pick up your copy of ... and all the pieces matter, with music from five years of The Wire, as well as Beyond Hamsterdam, featuring the Baltimore artists' tracks.

Times (UK): k.d. lang's New Album "Marks the Return of a Singular Talent to the Top of Her Game"

"How blissful, on a grey January day, to slip a crisp new disc into the stereo and find the silver lining to all these gloomy clouds." For the Telegraph (UK)'s Helen Brown, that silver lining is k.d. lang's latest Nonesuch release, Watershed. Brown calls this "beautiful album" "a stunning achievement." She writes:

[k.d.'s] elegant, intelligent voice shines like shafts of sunlight through clear, bright skies of melody and twinkling, shifting rhythms. It's better even than her biggest selling, 1992 album, Ingénue.

Often considered the finest torch singer of her generation, ... she has found the lightness of touch she needed: organs, banjos and cymbals dance over deep rivers of enduring emotion. 

To read the full review, visit telegraph.co.uk.

The print edition of the magazine also includes a glimpse of k.d.'s pre-Ingénue days with a "flashback" photo of the singer and actor River Phoenix at a PETA event in 1989, recalling her earliest days in Los Angeles.

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Also from the UK, the Times has weighed in on the new album with a four-star review, crediting k.d. with "one of the sexiest, most sensual voices in all of pop music" and calling Watershed "a seductive restatement of her talents." Critic John Bungey writes:

Her clear, pure tones, unadorned with vibrato, melodrama, and other Mariah Carey-isms, have floated through country, pop and swoonsome balladry ... But this is not mid-life crisis territory. The overall mood reflects a hard-won contentment ... Stylistically, every era of Lang's career ... informs Watershed, a set that marks the return of a singular talent to the top of her game.

To read the full review, visit entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

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The Independent gives the album four stars, with reviewer Andy Gill citing "a sophistication of outlook" in its songs and a delivery from k.d. that "is achingly perfect, her haunted croon somehow at once evoking desire and despair." Having waited eight years since k.d.'s last album of new, original material, Gill writes that Watershed was "well worth the wait."

The Independent also has an interesting feature exploring k.d.'s longtime collaborative relationship with Jeri Heiden, the art director behind the singer's instantly recognizable album art. Heiden, who has worked with a broad range of artists, from Madonna to John Adams (El Niño, Harmonium), first bonded with k.d. over grilled cucumber sandwiches during a rather surreal trip to Graceland more than two decades ago; the pair have developed a strong friendship and a highly successful working relationship (which also included k.d.'s Nonesuch debut, Hymns of the 49th Parallel) ever since.

To read the Independent review, click here; to read the interview with k.d. and Jeri, click here.

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Finally, the Sun, in its review of Watershed, gives the new album 4.5 stars, saying "the quality of k.d.’s work remains as high as ever" and describing the album as having a "lush and lovely feel" from the start:

The first track, "I Dream of Spring," has a vocal to die for, and sets the standard for an album that hardly falters. It's up there with the best work of a genuine class act.

To read the review, visit thesun.co.uk.

Day-Lewis Wins Best Actor SAG Award for "There Will Be Blood"

Congratulations to Daniel Day-Lewis, who was presented with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Best Male Actor in a Lead Role for his masterly performance in There Will Be Blood. Day-Lewis dedicated his award to actor Heath Ledger.

For the complete list of winners of the 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild awards, visit sagawards.org.

Guardian: Metheny's Four-Star "Day Trip" Features "Jubilant Improvising" from Trio

Pat Metheny's new trio record, Day Trip, is in stores tomorrow, and, in a four-star review, the Guardian's John Fordham says the album "combines the elegance of [Metheny's] lyrical fast-improvising, the eloquent pizzicato and bowed bass-playing of Christian McBride, and the explosive contemporary drumming ... Antonio Sanchez."

What's more, writes Fordham, Day Trip includes

jubilant improvising from all three, on the kind of bluesy grooves, Latin swingers and inviting ballads that suggest Wes Montgomery has returned to life and found the hippest 21st-century world-music partners he could ... Metheny's full of great improv ideas, and all three sound as if they are really enjoying themselves.

To read the review, visit arts.guardian.co.uk. To purchase Day Trip with exclusive bonus downloads, visit the Nonesuch Store starting tomorrow.

Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" Makes the Shortlist Short List

The nominees for the Shortlist prize have been narrowed down from the 54 artists on the Long List down to ten finalists, including Wilco, nominated for Sky Blue Sky. The band is one of only three on the list to have been nominated before, for A Ghost Is Born in 2003. Recent Shortlist winners include Cat Power, Sufjan Stevens, and TV on the Radio. This year's winners will be announced next month.

For more on the Shortlist and the nominees, visit shortlistofmusic.com.

Punch Brothers Perform Live on BBC Radio 4's "Loose Ends"

Punch Brothers appeared on the latest episode of the BBC Radio 4 program Loose Ends, offering a live performance of "Punch Bowl" off their upcoming Nonesuch debut, Punch. The show's host, Peter Curran, dubs the band—Chris Thile, Greg Garrison, Gabe Witcher, Chris Eldridge, and Noam Pikelny—the "kings of new-grass." You can hear the performance at about 29 minutes into the episode, streaming for the rest of the week, at bbc.co.uk/radio4.

Toumani Diabate Kicks Off US Tour

Toumani Diabate has kicked off a US tour that will take him from the Minneapolis Dakota Jazz Club tonight to the Diana Wortham Theater in Asheville, North Carolina, next week, with a number of stops along the way. His Chicago show tomorrow night tops Tribune writer Greg Kot's list of "shows you can't miss." Writes Kot: "Even as he plays rock festivals such as Glastonbury and collaborates with Björk, he has not allowed multiculturalism to dilute his fiercely singular style."

Read more at chicagotribune.com. For more tour information, click here.

Audra McDonald to Join NY Music Theatre Festival Grand Jury

The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) has announced that Audra McDonald will be among the artists on the Grand Jury for this year's Next Link Project, which helps promote emerging talent in musical theatre and is the source for more than half of the Festival's musicals. The fifth annual Festival will run from September 15 through October 5. Submissions for the jury-selected Next Link Project will be accepted through the end of February.

For more information, visit broadwayworld.com or the Festival's site, nymf.org.

Happy Birthday to Sam Phillips

Everyone at Nonesuch wishes Sam Phillips a very happy birthday today. We're all looking forward to her next Nonesuch release, due out this spring. Check back with the Nonesuch Journal for more information on the record and the forthcoming tour in the coming months.

Nonesuch Journal to Post Daily k.d. lang Video Interview Segments Next Week

On Monday, January 28, the Nonesuch Journal will launch a weeklong series of video interviews with k.d. lang leading up to the release of her new Nonesuch release, Watershed, on February 5. Check in with the Journal on Monday for the first episode, "My Favorite Things: A Life in Song."

LA Times Welcomes Stephin Merritt to Town

Long a fixture in New York City, Stephin Merritt has recently set up home in Los Angeles as well, and, writes Los Angeles Times staff writer Richard Cromelin, in a feature profile of the songwriter in this Sunday's paper, "his presence has enhanced L.A.'s creative landscape."

Already known as a prolific songwriter through his work with The Magnetic Fields (Distortion), The Gothic Archies (The Tragic Treasury), and many other projects, Stephin is now adding to his repertoire a musical adaptation of author Neil Gaiman's award-winning novel Coraline. Stephin's collaborator on the project, playwright David Greenspan, tells the Times:

There's a range of feelings and emotions that he's very successful at musicalizing. He's very witty ... and he has a wonderful sense of language. He can write witty songs and charming songs, but he can also write songs that are much more emotionally naked. There's a great variety to both the technical and emotional palette he works with.

Cromelin sums up Stephin's appeal this way:

Whether balancing the gravitas of his verse and voice against cheesy synth-pop or framing his theatrical exposition in folk-rooted formalism, Merritt's music is unfailingly catchy and propulsive, reflecting his fondness for such acts as Kraftwerk, Phil Spector and ABBA.

To read the article, visit latimes.com.

Times (UK) Profiles Punch Brothers and Chris Thile's "Remarkable" New Music

At their recent performance at Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival, Punch Brothers won over a few skeptics in the audience: In the crowd were some die-hard traditionalists who'd come expecting to hear straight-up bluegrass but left having found something more in the new four-movement piece by Chris Thile, The Blind Leaving the Blind.

It's the centerpiece of Punch Brothers upcoming Nonesuch debut, Punch, and in a revealing feature in the Times (UK), writer Pete Paphides examines what happens in music when tradition and innovation come together. "Few musicians," he writes, "well, none—have intertwined bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the strictures of modern classical ... [A]s a portrait of an artist defining his musical territory ... it is remarkable."

Expanding his musical repertoire, and recognizing longtime fans' reactions to it, is something Thile is familiar with. He grew up on the bluegrass and folk circuit performing with his band Nickel Creek, then found himself in a new world when the band released a multi-platinum-selling album. With that phenomenal success, he faced outside pressure to repeat it, but found he wasn't interested in either the trappings or the demands. Instead, he's sought to challenge himself as a songwriter and musician.

His music has also provided comfort during some difficult times, as has the support of his fellow musicians. The new band ultimately got together when, as Thile tells the Times, he and fiddler Gabe Witcher "got together one night just to drop a ton of money, drink too much wine, eat steaks and commiserate about our failed relationships."

To read the profile, visit entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

WNYC, Salon Examine the Many Musical Projects of Stephin Merritt

There's been much talk and praise of late of Stephin Merritt's latest Magnetic Fields album, Distortion, but on tonight's New Sounds show on WNYC, New York Public Radio, host John Schaefer takes a look at another of Merritt's many projects, The Gothic Archies, and the 2006 album The Tragic Treasury, a musical companion to the popular series of books, Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. Folks in the New York City area can tune in at 11 PM ET to 93.9 FM on their radios. You can also listen to the show live at that time on wnyc.org.

Meanwhile, Salon finds some similarities between Merritt's use of alter egos (writing also for The 6ths and Future Bible Heroes) and Chan Marshall's work as Cat Power. Yet, writes the site's Zach Baron, focusing on the new Magnetic Fields album,

Distortion works because Stephin Merritt allows himself—however ironically—to be Stephin Merritt again; if the production's loud enough to drown out the sound of his own voice, well then that leaves him free to use it.

To read the article, visit salon.com.

Nonesuch Artists Take Manhattan (and Brooklyn, Too) This Sunday

With the Brad Mehldau Trio's weeklong residency at New York's Village Vanguard well under way and running through Sunday, the city will also be playing host to performances by a number of Nonesuch artists this weekend.

Sérgio and Odair Assad will perform in both sessions of Sunday's Brazilian Guitar Marathon concert, a two-part, multi-artist event they co-curated. The Marathon begins at 2 PM at the 92nd Street Y and will be hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC radio. The event is part of the nearly monthlong New York Guitar Festival, which has presented more than 200 of the world's greatest guitarist since 1999, including Bill Frisell (who'll be performing upstate instead this Sunday at Peekskill's Paramount Center for the Arts) and Emmylou Harris (who'll be at Michigan's Folk Fest finishing up her tour with Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Buddy Miller). For more information on the Brazilian Guitar Marathon, visit newyorkguitarfestival.org.

Playing later Sunday afternoon on the west side of town is Richard Goode, who performs works by Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, and Fauré at the Rose Theater as part of Lincoln Center's Great Performers events and its Virtuoso Recitals series. For further program and ticket information, visit lincolncenter.org.

Even with subway trains running on a weekend schedule, that should leave enough time for folks to head down to Brooklyn's Union Hall in Park Slope for Laura Veirs's set at 9:30 PM. Advance tickets are sold out, but a limited number of tickets will be available at show time. For more information, visit unionhallny.com.

And as always, you can find the dates and locations of Nonesuch artists' tours throughout the world on nonesuch.com by clicking the Tours button at the right.

John Adams, Glenn Kotche Attend "Doctor Atomic" Lyric Opera Closer

John Adams's opera, Doctor Atomic, made its Chicago debut last month at the Lyric Opera, under the direction of Adams's longtime collaborator, Peter Sellars, who also created the work's libretto. The production, starring Gerald Finley as Robert Oppenheimer, often called "the father of the atomic bomb," had its final performance last Saturday, on January 19.

Among those in the audience for closing night were the composer, drummer Glenn Kotche with his wife Miiri, and Nonesuch president Bob Hurwitz, pictured here inside the hall:

Doctor Atomic will make its Metropolitan Opera debut in New York City this October. The Doctor Atomic Symphony, based on orchestral music from the opera, will be given its New York premiere on February 16 at Carnegie Hall with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, David Robertson conducting. The composer and conductor will also participate in a pre-concert talk with Carnegie's director of artistic planning, Jeremy Geffen, free to the concert's ticketholders. For more information, visit carnegiehall.org.

Toumani Diabate and Fernando Otero to Play NY's Bowery Ballroom

On Toumani Diabate's last tour through New York City, last July, rain forced his scheduled free outdoor concert, planned as part of the Hudson Festival, to move indoors to the more hospitable and intimate setting of the nearby Stuyvesant High School auditorium. This time around, Toumani's keeping things indoors, performing at New York's Bowery Ballroom on Thursday, January 31, with label mate Fernando Otero opening. Brooklyn Vegan marks the upcoming show with a bunch of great pics from last summer's lively Stuyvesant High set. Check them out at brooklynvegan.com. For information on the Bowery show, visit boweryballroom.com.

Toumani will also be giving a short preview of his Thursday night set with a free in-store solo performance at Manhattan's Other Music record store at 8 PM the night before. Visit othermusic.com for more information. 

For further tour dates, click here.

Fernando's Nonesuch debut album, Pagina de Buenos Aires, is available in the Nonesuch Store now. Look for Toumani's forthcoming World Circuit / Nonesuch release, The Mandé Variations, in the Store starting February 26.

Evening Standard: Five of Five Stars for "Sweeney the Spectacular"

The Evening Standard (UK) gives Sweeney Todd a perfect five out of five stars, dubbing the film "Sweeney the Spectacular" and calling it "just about perfect." Film critic Charlotte O'Sullivan gives fair warning, though, that once Sweeney Todd takes hold of its viewers, it isn't likely to let go.

With melodies that "tiptoe under our skin and refuse to leave," she writes, Sweeney brings filmgoers to a "heightened state" that once entered makes it difficult not to sympathize with the murderous barber, played by Johnny Depp, and his partner in crime, played by Helena Bonham Carter. In fact, thanks to the actors' "increasingly intense performances ... it becomes impossible."

To read the review, visit thisislondon.co.uk/film.

Kronos Quartet Family Concert to Introduce Children to Broad Range of Musics

Kronos Quartet will present the first San Francisco Performances "family matinee" concert of the year this Saturday at the city's Herbst Theatre. And as the San Jose Mercury News reports, it's sure to offer children and their families a broad sampling of the groundbreaking quartet's expansive repertoire.

Kronos founder and violinist David Harrington tells Yoshi Kato of the Mercury News that the specially geared program should give the all-age crowd "a good sense of some of the vocabulary that we use ... There'll be some electronic things and ... music from China and Mexico and India and several places in Africa. So it's going to go around the world, too."

That sort of sonically diverse, multicultural exploration is also present on Kronos' forthcoming CD, The Cusp of Magic, featuring music composer Terry Riley wrote for the group. Featured in the piece are musical sources as varied as Chinese lullabies from pipa virtuoso Wu Man and digital samples of musical toys from Harrington's own collection, which he's often used to entertain his now five-year-old granddaughter.

She, too, has indirectly helped her grandfather program family concerts like this Saturday's, providing a good gauge for what the younger audiences might enjoy and be able to absorb. The Quartet was also inspired by a recent visit to one of their rehearsals from the first-grade class taught by Harrington's daughter. He tells Kato:

Every one of the kids got to touch our instruments and make a sound on them. That's something that just seems to be more and more exclusive and hidden away. You can experience it on television or whatnot, but to actually be able to see and hear and even touch an instrument is increasingly rare.

For more information on this Saturday's concert, you can read Kato's article at mercurynews.com. To learn more about The Cusp of Magic, click here.

k.d. lang Discusses Art and Life with the New Statesman

The UK's New Statesman interviewed k.d. lang just before the release of her new album, Watershed, and her concerts next week in Glasgow and London. Asked whether art can make a difference in the world, she answers unequivocally, "Without a doubt. Art exercises the muscle that allows us to see objects and life as portals into the human spirit." To read the interview, visit newstatesman.com.

Also in the UK, the Evening Post out of Nottingham names Watershed an Album of the Week. Reviewer Alex Sarll gives the record four stars, writing that its "languidly smoky late-night laments are at times reminiscent of Leonard Cohen or alt.country, at others almost jazzy." He calls Watershed "a timeless yet affecting collection." To read the revie