journal.nonesuch.com

Punch Brothers Make "Tonight Show" Debut Tonight

Punch Brothers will be making their very first appearance as a band on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight on NBC. The guys will play "Punch Bowl," the first track off their new record, Punch. You can preview that track and the song "Nothing, Then" at nonesuch.com/punch. You can also hear "Punch Bowl" here:

The Tonight Show starts at 11:35 PM ET. For more information, visit nbc.com.

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On this week's All Songs Considered podcast, you can hear the album's closing track, "It'll Happen." The show's host, introduces the Punch Brothers track with this: "After seeing Chris Thile play for our webcast with his band Nickel Creek, I was sure that I had just seen the most astonishing musician I had ever seen live." You can listen to the latest episode of All Songs Considered on npr.org here and the webcast of Nickel Creek's "Farewell (For Now)" concert, recorded live last November, here.

Punch Brothers' appearance on All Things Considered, originally scheduled for Wednesday, will now air on today's show. The show airs from from 4–6:30 PM ET on WNYC, 93.9 FM in New York, and 5–7 PM PT on KCRW, 89.9 FM in Los Angeles, and can be heard streaming live on the stations' respective websites. Visit npr.org for further local listings or to listen to All Things Considered online beginning around 7 PM ET.

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In a four-star review of the new album in The Guardian, Robin Denselow compares the boundary-breaking tunes on Punch to label mate Rokia Traoré's collaboration with the Kronos Quartet on her album Bowmboï. "What we have here," he writes of Punch, "is a new musical style," one he calls "intriguing, unusual and very classy." Denselow refers to Thile for his "extraordinary virtuoso playing, writing and singing" and, equally important, for his moving "the American country-folk scene into an unexpected direction. He's a mandolin player, but in his hands the instrument becomes more versatile than ever."

In the album's centerpiece, The Blind Leaving the Blind, Denselow finds Thile matching "his charming, easy going vocal work against passages where guitar, bass, banjo and fiddle follow the intricate twists and turns of his writing."

To read the review, visit arts.guardian.co.uk.

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In today's New York Times, music critic Nate Chinen explores the history and the recent resurgence of bluegrass and roots music in the City, citing as an example a set Chris Thile joined in on at the intimate Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side as one of many events taking place in the new roots music scene.

Chris spoke to the Times about the ever-evolving musical form with which he has long been associated, and working against an outdated misperception that going to a folk-music concert is a staid affair. “There’s a perception we have to fight through as folk musicians," he tells Chinen. "Like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to go to this concert and get in touch with our roots.’ That’s totally valid, but it’s also like visiting a museum.”

To read Chinen's article on the contemporary roots music scene in New York, visit nytimes.com.

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George Varga of the Bend Weekly out of Oregon calls The Blind Leaving the Blind "equal parts folk, bluegrass, jazz and contemporary classical," praising the piece as "a brave and daring work, especially in an era of ring-tone-length attention spans and lowest-common-denominator pop music."

Varga finds that "the music unfolds over time to reveal a rich tapestry of styles and sounds that require---and reward---attentive listening." Chris himself confirms in the Weekly: "that that is exactly what we're trying to do."

To read the article, visit bendweekly.com.

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NPR: Toumani Diabate's New Album the "Most Beautiful Recording of the Kora"

This week's edition of All Songs Considered features music from Toumani Diabate's The Mande Variations. Host Bob Boilen prefaced the playing of the album's closing track, "Cantelowes," with this introduction: "I don't know why I think the music of Mali is the most beautiful music in the world, but I do. Its most magical musician must be Toumani Diabate." The new album, he exclaims, "is the most beautiful recording of the kora that I've ever heard."

You can listen to the episode at npr.org or play the track, "Cantelowes," here:

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NY Times: k.d. lang Brings One of the World's Most Beautiful Voices to Tour

Last night, k.d. lang played the final performance of her three-night residency at New York City's Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. The New York Times' Stephen Holden, in his review of Wednesday's show, posits that the Canadian singer's inclusion in an American-themed series may stem from the reputation she earned through her collaboration with Tony Bennett as "one of the two or three great under-50 interpreters of American popular standards."

On the current tour, k.d. is focusing primarily on the work of Canadian songwriters, most notably the songs she created for her new album, Watershed. Holden writes that the Wednesday night set "conjured big-sky country where romantic dreamers infused the wide-open spaces with swooning desire" and says of k.d. that she is "possessed of one of the world's most beautiful and steady pop voices."

Holden refers back to the title of k.d.'s 1989 album, Absolute Torch and Twang, for the most apt description of this inimitable performer:

The torch part comes from the dreamy side of Peggy Lee, a North Dakota farm girl whose ’60s ballad style remains the ne plus ultra of a dreamy passivity. The twang comes from another Lang idol, the country singer Patsy Cline, in whom true grit battled heartbreak and won by a hair. In Watershed the two aspects are boldly overlaid.

To read the review, visit nytimes.com.

Up next on the tour are three stops in Florida, beginning with a concert at the Kravis Center for the Arts in West Palm Beach tomorrow night. For more tour information, click here.

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Goode Continues Southbank Residency, "Poised to Perfection"

Richard Goode held the latest event of his season-long artist residency as Associate Artist at London's Southbank Centre with a concert this week at the Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall. The Guardian gives the performance four stars, with reviewer Erica Jeal calling the Chopin-focused program, also featuring works by Bach, Mozart, and Debussy, "thoughtfully and reverently put together."

"Each time Goode returned to Chopin," writes Jeal, "it was like a homecoming." As she explains:

He found insight in the relative simplicity of the mazurkas, and even virtuoso works such as the Op. 54 Scherzo and the Op. 44 Polonaise didn't sound like tricksy showpieces ... [T]he trills near the end of the Nocturne in B, Op. 62 No 1, were poised to perfection, as were the sugar-spun runs in the Op. 36 Impromptu in F sharp, with Goode, deep in communion with the instrument, emitting a gruff purr over the top.

Jeal concludes: "This was mellow, mature playing, its emotion strongly felt but only sufficiently signalled. It takes a classy pianist to achieve that."

To read the review, visit music.guardian.co.uk/live.

The Guardian also features a profile of Goode, in which writer Andrew Clements examines the pianist's life story, from his earliest childhood piano lessons to the reluctant launch of a solo career through his breakthrough Beethoven piano sonata cycle recordings on Nonesuch to today when, Goode reports, "Basically, I play the music I love best."

As Clements sees it,

much of the work Goode does play demands just as much technical prowess as the flashier pieces he avoids. It's a matter of temperament and taste, and of knowing where his musical strengths lie. Right now, Goode is using those strengths to outstanding effect.

To read the article, visit music.guardian.co.uk/classical.

Up next in the Southbank residency, Goode will conduct a lecture-recital at Queen Elizabeth Hall tonight and a master class tomorrow afternoon in the Purcell Room. The final event in the series will be held on May 31, a concert of four-hand piano works with Richard Goode. For program and ticket information, visit southbankcentre.co.uk.

"Sweeney Todd" DVDs to Be Released April 1

The Tim Burton-directed film version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, will be available on DVD beginning April 1, in both a two-disc special edition and a single-disc DVD.

Playbill reports that the two-disc version will include an in-depth look at the Sondheim musical, behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the film, and the history of the legend of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, among a number of additional special features. For further details, visit playbill.com.

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Newsday: k.d. lang Delivers "Something Special" in New York Shows

k.d. lang continues her Watershed tour tonight with the last of three nights at New York City's Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.

Newsday's Glenn Gamboa's review of k.d.'s series opener on Tuesday begins this way:

When k.d. lang closes her eyes and points her head to the heavens, it's a sure sign that something special is soon to follow. Her voice, her phrasing, her performance techniques all add up to a gorgeous delivery that enhances whatever song she chooses.

In addition, Gamboa credits "the strength of her new album" with keeping the proceedings at such a high level. It's the power of the songs, and, as ever, the quality of the voice:

For lang, it is never about the power of her singing, though she certainly has plenty. It's about evoking a mood and building a moment, which requires structure and control, not vocal curlicues and the fluttering melisma of singing 10 notes when one will do.

To read the review, visit newsday.com.

She and the band will make their way to Carleston, West Virginia, in a little over a week for a concert at the Clay Center, after stops in Florida and North Carolina. The Carleston Post and Courier's Devin Grant writes that with Watershed, k.d. "keeps things just as unpredictable as ever ... Indeed, listening to this CD is just like discovering a brand new artist." Grant concludes:

There is no denying that the music on Watershed was worth the eight-year wait ... In a world where much of today's music sounds alarmingly generic, lang should be commended for keeping things interesting.

To read the article, visit charleston.net. For more tour information, click here.

The album review in Enterainment Today credits k.d.'s first foray into self-production with further showcasing her voice, as well as the "powerful combination" of "the lushness of the orchestrations and the deft turns of phrase in the lyrics." Reviewer Brad Auerbach writes that the style k.d. first introduced with 1992's Ingénue is continued here "with aplomb." He cites the opening track, "I Dream of Spring," in particular for evoking "the mercurial mix of the spiritual and sexual mastered so well by the likes of Van Morrison and Al Green." Auerbach's review ends with kind words for Nonesuch for offering artists "unfettered freedom to pursue their muse" with "consistently gratifying" results. To read the review, visit entertainmenttoday.net.

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Daily Telegraph: Punch Brothers Take Bluegrass into New Territory

Punch Brothers and their Nonesuch debut, Punch, are featured on this week's edition of NPR's All Songs Considered, along with label mate Toumani Diabate and his latest, The Mande Variations. Listen now online at npr.org/music or download the podcast.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph (UK), music critic Ivan Hewett places the members of Punch Brothers "among America's folk music elite," describing them this way: "All five are virtuoso players who can toss off the wild, high-speed improvisations for which bluegrass is famous."

Even with bluegrass as their common experiential thread, Hewett recognizes that with Punch, the band is "taking bluegrass into new territory." In an interview with the Telegraph, Chris Thile explains what he was looking to do with his latest effort and why.

"I want to enlarge the palette," Thile says. "I think it's a desire of modern musicians to complete the musical characteristics of whatever tradition they've grown up in."

Thile and the band, Hewett concludes, are succeeding in their efforts:

It's a delicate task, to renew a tradition without destroying the very thing that makes it special. But on the evidence of their first album the Punch Brothers are well on the way to achieving it.

To read the article, visit telegraph.co.uk.

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2 1/2 Hours of Live Wilco Now on NPR.org

Wilco performed the second of two sold-out sets at Washington, DC's 9:30 Club last night, and NPR was there, broadcasting the show live on its site. The complete show, nearly 2 1/2 hours of music, is available now at npr.org/music. Here's what you'll hear:

1. Sunken Treasure
2. Mountain Bed
3. Company in My Back
4. You Are My Face
5. Side with the Seeds
6. She's a Jar
7. Shot in the Arm
8. Nothingsever
9. Handshake Drugs
10. Pot Kettle Black
11. Roses Bloom
12. Impossible Germany
13. Simple
14. Someday Soon
15. Box Full of Letters
16. Always in Love
17. Pieholden
18. Jesus Etc.
19. Hate It Here
20. Walken
21. I'm the Man
22. Humming Bird
23. On and On and On
24. Via Chicago
25. California Stars
26. Casino Queen
27. I'm a Wheel
28. Monday

Kronos Quartet's "Cusp" Plays to Composer's Strengths

Kronos Quartet's latest Nonesuch release is the premiere recording of Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic, with pipa virtuoso Wu Man. Dusted magazine's Kevin Macneil Brow credits the composer with having created an "enthralling work from a wide palette of diverse ideas and influences that might well have defeated a lesser composer." Brow goes on to praise the performers as well for their ability to "engage and interact in ways that combine earthy energy and celestial delight with an underlying sense of gravity and dignity."

What keeps Cusp's "diverse ideas" together, he writes, is "Riley's vision and integrity, his willingness and commitment to allow these ideas and voices their full expression." Also, the review concludes,

One should not underestimate the way Kronos plays to Riley's strengths---the vigorous colloquy of bold imagination, musical line and voice, the solid and purely present physicality that this music, although often metaphysical in mood and theme, ultimately asks for.

To read the complete review and listen to an excerpt of the album, visit dustedmagazine.com.

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Alarm Will Sound to Give NY Premiere of Adams Piece at Carnegie Hall

Alarm Will Sound, which gave the world premiere of John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony at Stanford University on November 30 of last year, will give the piece its New York premiere tonight in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. You'll find reviews of the piece, which the Los Angeles Times's Mark Swed called "pure Adams," and the world premiere in the Nonesuch Journal archives by clicking here.

Tonight's concert, part of Carnegie's Fast Forward series, begins at 7:30 PM and will include works by Nancarrow, Ligeti, Josquin des Prez, and Aphex Twin, among others. For complete program and ticket information, visit carnegiehall.org.

Paul Taylor Dance Performances to Feature Kronos Music

Songs from Kronos Quartet's 2002 album Nuevo will be featured throughout the Paul Taylor Dance Company's residency at New York City Center beginning tonight. Running through March 16, the programs include 19 different works, most notably last year's De Sueños (Of Dreams) and De Sueños Que Se Repetin (Of Recurring Dreams), which are set to the Kronos tracks; they will be performed separately throughout the residency and on the same program for the Company's Gala event March 4.

In a profile of the choreographer that examines the creation of the pieces, the New York Times calls the  Sueños pieces among his trickiest. To learn more, visit nytimes.com.

For program and ticket information, visit nycitycenter.org.

Tune in to Punch Brothers on "All Things Considered" Today

Update: This evening's Punch Brothers appearance on All Things Considered has been postponed due to unexpected breaking news coverage. The Nonesuch Journal will add further scheduling information as it becomes available.

Tune in to NPR's All Things Considered this afternoon to hear Punch Brothers' discuss Punch, their Nonesuch debut, with Craig Havighurst. The show airs from from 4–6:30 PM ET on WNYC, 93.9 FM in New York, and 5–7 PM PT on KCRW, 89.9 FM in Los Angeles, and can be heard streaming live on the stations' respective websites. Visit npr.org for further local listings or to listen to All Things Considered online beginning around 7 PM ET.

The band will also be featured on NPR's All Songs Considered podcast, available tomorrow through npr.org/music, as will label mate Toumani Diabate, whose new album, The Mandé Variations, was released this week as well.

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Click here to add the Punch CD plus free album MP3s, including the bonus download, "Bailey," direct to your Shopping cart for $15.98.

Click here to add The Mandé Variations CD plus the free album MP3s to your Shopping Cart now for only $15.98. 

Wilco Show to Be Broadcast Live on NPR Tonight

Wilco played their first of two sold-out shows at Washington, DC's 9:30 Club last night. They'll return tonight for a performance that will be broadcast live online for NPR's All Songs Considered. You can catch it streaming live on NPR.org. The webcast will be the band's third for NPR, having previously appeared in 2005 for the Grammy-winning A Ghost Is Born and in 2006 following the release of Kicking Television (Live in Chicago).

NY Times: Greenwood's "There Will Be Blood" Score Will Have "Profound Effect on Scoring"

For the New York Times' media columnist David Carr ("The Carpetbagger"), the "biggest travesty" of this year's Oscars was the omission of Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood from the running for Best Score, due to "some indecipherable technicalities." This is especially unfortunate, because, Carr predicts, "Greenwood's amazing score will have a profound effect on scoring going forward." In his estimation, "The composer took an age-old artistic problem---what to put in the ears while the eyes are awash---and came up with a completely new answer." To read the article, visit carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com.

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Toumani Diabate Releases the "Most Ambitious" Solo Kora Album Ever (New Statesman)

Today marks the release of The Mande Variations, Toumani Diabate's follow-up to 2006's Boulevard de l'Independence, with the Symmetric Orchestra, and his first solo record in more than two decades.

The New York Times's Jon Pareles includes the album in his Playlist this week, calling it "the work of a modern virtuoso rethinking an age-old instrument." Toumani, writes Pareles:

turns the syncopated propulsion of griot songs into cascading counterpoint, or hangs simple melodies in midair, or constructs filigrees with each note as precisely weighted as the phrases of a Renaissance lute piece. On its own, in close-up, the kora sounds radiant.

To read Pareles's Playlist, visit nytimes.com.

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David Hutcheon, writing in The Times (UK), describes the circumstances under which journalists from across Europe made their way to Spain for a live display of Toumani's "dazzling virtuosity." Reports Hutcheon: "the magic is complete: countless notes tumble from his instrument, as if he is playing every part of an orchestra. The solo performance holds us spellbound."

The Mande Variations comes 21 years after his last solo record, the seminal album Kaira, and, says Hutcheon, the new record "picks up where his earliest recordings left off ... But now Diabate has far more power as a musician, and the tunes are just starting points for his improvisations."

To read the Times article, visit entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

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The Guardian's Robin Denselow gives The Mande Variations four stars, calling it a "remarkable" follow-up to the "exquisite" Kaira. You can read the album review at arts.guardian.co.uk. Denselow also spoke with Diabate about the new record and about various collaborations with the likes of Björk, Damon Albarn, Taj Mahal, and Ali Farka Touré; read that article at music.guardian.co.uk.

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The Evening Standard also gives the album four stars and names it a CD of the Week. Writes critic Simon Broughton:

The West African kora is one of the most seductive instruments on the planet---a sublime concoction of calabash gourd, cowskin and fishing line. And Toumani Diabaté, from a hereditary family of musicians in Mali, is its greatest exponent. With filigree, rippling melodies, the music is soft, elegant and profound ... [It] takes you to another world.

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

Broughton offers more of Toumani's story in a separate article for New Statesman magazine. In it, he praises the album's "gloriously clear sound" and calls The Mande Variations "probably the most ambitious album of solo kora music ever recorded." To read the article, visit newstatesman.com.

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The Independent also gives the album four stars. Reviewer Andy Gill says it proves "worth the wait" of those years since Kaira; he sees the new album as "offering a dazzling demonstration of the breadth and virtuosity of Diabaté's playing, and of the innovative tunings and tactics with which he expands the instrument's traditional range." To read the review, visit independent.co.uk.

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The Telegraph's classical music critic Ivan Hewett was surprised and skeptical, at first, when he received what he assumed must be "world" music and therefore outside his purview. But, he writes, "I was enchanted, and now play it all the time, even when I ought to be getting on with something else."

Of the kora, Hewitt writes that it possesses "among the most sheerly seductive sounds of any instrument in the world."  And as for Toumani, he praises

the pleasure to be had from the dizzying virtuosity of Diabaté's playing. He'll take the end of a melodic phrase and spin it into a whirling Catherine-wheel figuration out of sheer joie de vivre ... [T]his music has playfulness in abundance.

Regardless of whether, ultimately, this music would be better labeled classical or otherwise, "it's wonderful on its own terms."

To read the Telegraph review, telegraph.co.uk.

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Listen to "Ali Farka Toure" (6:20), track three off the new record, here:

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Click here to add The Mande Variations CD plus the free album MP3s to your Shopping Cart now for only $15.98. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

k.d. lang Kicks Off North American Tour with Class

The North American leg of k.d. lang's Watershed tour kicked off last week with an opening-night performance in her home country, at Toronto's cozy club The Courthouse. The Toronto Sun gives the concert four-and-a-half stars and reports: "You couldn't have asked for a more classy kickoff to a world tour." To read the review, visit torontosun.com.

The Toronto Globe and Mail's Robert Everett-Green writes that the set was "smooth and powerful," with k.d. seeming to be "in high spirits." Of the songs from Watershed, which make up a good part of the live show, he says:

The new songs refuse as a group to be assigned to any particular musical neighbourhood. The prevailing attitude is both/and, not either/or, and that suits her singing style, which has so many ways of exploring a line or a phrase.

For the complete review, visit theglobeandmail.com.

k.d. will be back in Toronto this spring for an extended Canadian tour after stops throughout the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

The first stop on the US leg of the tour was a sold-out Saturday-night show at Boston's Opera House. Boston Globe staff writer Joan Anderman says it was "an endlessly classy and surprisingly warm set." She points, in particular, to two album tracks, "I Dream of Spring," the album opener, and "Coming Home" as "marvelous amalgams" exemplary of k.d.'s ability to seamlessly blend any number of styles.

The Boston Herald's Christopher John Treacy's review of the show refers to Watershed as "a culmination of her myriad musical experiments" that finds k.d. "making the kind of musical choices that only come with time and experience." About her performance on Saturday, Treacy writes that she "triumphed from an uncanny balance of musical motifs: lang let her new material provide the glue for an otherwise cherry-picked assortment of career-spanning tunes."

Treacy also points to her "impassioned readings" of songs from the Canadian songbook by Jane Siberry and Leonard Cohen, which she recorded for her Nonesuch debut, Hymns of the 49th Parallel, as "downright transcendent."

To read the complete Herald review, visit bostonherald.com.

For his part, Boston Edge contributor Robert Israel says the songstress was "beaming with joy," with "no lack of love" bouncing back at her from the packed crowd. He writes:

Her musical range is extraordinary. Her phrasing is precise. She often has to hold the microphone away from her: when she unleashes her full power, no mike is needed, really, even in a hall as large as the Opera House ... Sheer delight in music, in her rapport with her fans, with the band that never overpowered but always complimented her, all conspired to make her concert a warm, witty and inspiring one.

The writer quotes one fan who shouted to k.d.: "You’ve got the best voice on the planet!" And he's not Israel is not likely to disagree, concluding: "That statement may not be far from the truth." To read his concert review, visit edgeboston.com.

From there, k.d. and her band made their way to Philadelphia Sunday night for what the Philadelphia Inquirer calls a "love-fest at the Kimmel Center." The Philadelphia Bulletin agrees, with the paper's Lewis Whittington k.d.'s voice "transcendent, proving that poetry and lyrics are alive in her music." Furthermore, he writes, for all the styles she has embraced over the years, she has never done so simply to follow the latest trend, rather, "she inhabits the genre she happens to be in because musically she has something to bring to it."

She's now made her way to New York City, where she'll appear today on WNYC, New York Public Radio, for an interview on the Leonard Lopate Show, at noon ET (streaming live on wnyc.org), and at the Allen Room at 8:30 PT for the first of three nights as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. For those of you who aren't able to make the show, you can tune in to New York's WFUV, 90.7 FM, all day, as the DJs will be focusing the spotlight on k.d. and Watershed, and at 9 PM, the station's music director, Rita Houston, will air her interview with k.d. on the program Words & Music from Studio A. Tune in at wfuv.org.

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The Black Keys' New Album Now Available for Pre-Order

The Black Keys' forthcoming Nonesuch release, Attack & Release, is due out April 1, but it's available for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store. Visit the Store or click here to add the pre-order directly to your Shopping Cart. You'll receive the CD and be able to download the complete album at 128 kpbs or 320 kbps the day of the release at no extra charge.

The album single "Strange Times" is now available digitally at a number of online retailers; you can watch a preview video of it here.

Rolling Stone visited the band in Suma Studios in Ohio, where they recorded the new album with producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton). Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach tell the magazine about the roots of the record, from a proposed Danger Mouse project with Ike Turner, to what Rolling Stone calls

the first Black Keys record that rewards headphone scrutiny, with enfolded layers of bass guitar, Moog fizz, bongos and female vocal harmonies (from Jessica Lea Mayfield, a local teenage singer discovered by Auerbach). Danger Mouse's dusted arrangements and electronic touches are deftly incorporated, while Carney's drumming sounds awesomely like Ringo Starr.

To read the full report from the studio, visit rollingstone.com.

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Click here to pre-order Attack & Release CD with the complete album MP3s for just $12.98.

Rolling Stone: "Metheny Thrives in a Trio Format"

Pat Metheny's latest record, Day Trip, his first trio record in years, joined here by bassist Christian McBride and drummer Antonio Sanchez, was released late last month and made available in the Nonesuch Store with the two exclusive live bonus tracks. In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, critic David Fricke gives the new record four stars. He writes that Pat "doesn't make enough records in a trio setting" and this one "should not be the last" with McBride and Sanchez. Fricke calls the pair "jazzmen with R&B and rock bones" and cites Day Trip as proof that "Metheny thrives in a trio format." Read the review at rollingstone.com.

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The Trio has been working its way down the California coast, from Napa on February 19 through San Francisco for a four-day residency at Yoshi's last week, down to The Wiltern in Los Angeles for an Oscar-night show, and closing with two shows in San Diego at Anthology tonight and Wednesday.

In the Napa Valley Register review of the town's Opera House show, staff writer Pierce Carson reports that the "all-star trio" played for "a wildly enthusiastic packed house." Carson calls McBride and Sanchez "the most awesome rhythm section in the business" and says of this trio grouping that it "might arguably be the best" Metheny has worked with. "This was an evening of pure jazz," writes Carson, "accessible yet intelligent, complex and swinging---offered by three musicians who obviously understand and like one another." You'll find the review at napavalleyregister.com.

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The Contra Costa Times, out of the Bay Area, found the opening-night show at Yoshi's in San Francisco to be "a real treat." Reviewer Jim Harrington was left in "dumbfounded amazement as Metheny plucked and strummed out a variety of sounds." Harrington lauds Metheny's partners as "certainly one of the best trios he's led." You can read the full review at contracostatimes.com.

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Variety magazine's Richard S. Ginell writes of Pat's performance at Sunday's show at LA's Wiltern Theater: "it was clear he enjoys a good joust with a pair of virtuosos." For Ginell, the set was "as eclectic as ever ... concluding with some shredding guitar-hero rock." To read the review, visit variety.com.

Reviewing the show for the Los  Angeles Times, writer Don Heckman calls it "a night to remember." He asks rhetorically whether there is "a harder-working guitarist in jazz than Pat Metheny," referencing the sheer length and variety of the set. Heckman reports that the show was "as athletic as it was imaginative, a muscular display of guitar virtuosity," with the Trio bringing "delectable variations to everything they offered." To read the review, visit calendarlive.com.

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Leading to this week's San Diego shows, the San Diego Union Tribune profiles Sanchez, calling him "one of the most distinctive drummers around---and one of the finest." To read the article, visit signonsandiego.com.

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After the last California set, the Trio makes its way to the Southwest this weekend. The Albuquerque Journal previews the group's upcoming Santa Fe set with an interview with Pat, focusing particularly on the new album's track "Is This America? (Katrina 2005)," the larger impact of the New Orleans floods, and the power of music and jazz in particular to address such important issues. To read the article, visit abqjournal.com.

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For more upcoming tour information, click here. To listen to an interview with Pat on BBC Radio 3's Jazz Line-Up from last Friday, visit bbc.co.uk/radio3; his segment begins about ten minutes into the show.

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Click here to add the Day Trip CD plus the free album MP3s, with two exclusive live bonus downloads, directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $15.98.

Jonny Greenwood Piece Premiere Available on NPR.com

Jonny Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver received its US premiere last month as part of the Wordless Music series in New York City. The piece, parts of which can be heard in Greenwood's score for the film There Will Be Blood "to great cinematic effect" (NPR), was performed for the premiere by conductor Brad Lubman and the Wordless Music Orchestra at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle. NPR and WNYC have now made a recording of the concert performance available online at npr.org.

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Click here to add the There Will Be Blood soundtrack CD plus the free album MP3s, with three exclusive bonus downloads, directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $15.98.

Wilco, Live from New York

Tune in to NBC this Saturday night as Wilco makes its Saturday Night Live debut. The band is scheduled to perform two songs on the March 1 show, which airs live beginning at 11:30 PM ET. The show's host will be Ellen Page, the Oscar-nominated star of the film Juno. For more information, visit nbc.com.

Wilco's performance at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center this Friday has been rescheduled for August 7 due to the above. All tickets for the February 29 show will be honored for the rescheduled date, and refunds will be available from your point of purchase. The band sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience this change in schedule has caused.

Punch Brothers Celebrate Release of Debut Record; Perform on "Tonight Show"

Tomorrow marks the release of Punch, the Nonesuch Records debut from Punch Brothers---Chris Thile, Chris Eldridge, Gabe Witcher, Noam Pikelny, and Greg Garrison---and to get release week started right, we've launched nonesuch.com/punch, where you can learn more about the group and hear two tracks off the album: "Punch Bowl" and "Nothing, Then."

To close out this very special week in style, the guys will be performing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno this Friday, February 29. The show starts at 11:35 PM ET; for more info, visit nbc.com.

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You can still pre-order the album at the Nonesuch Store today and download your free album MP3s tomorrow, with the bonus instrumental track, "Bailey." Or add the album directly to your Shopping Cart by clicking here.

Video: The Black Keys' "Strange Times"

"Strange Times," the first single off The Black Keys forthcoming Nonesuch release, Attack & Release, was released last week on iTunes and Amazon. Check out the video clip below featuring the new song:

For more behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the new record, visit theblackkeys.com.

Oscars Go to "There Will Be Blood," "Sweeney Todd"

At last night's Academy Awards ceremony, the creative teams behind There Will Be Blood and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street both picked up statuettes.

There Will Be Blood star Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor in a Leading Role. In his acceptance speech, he signaled out his director, describing the film as having sprung "like a golden sapling out of the mad, beautiful head of Paul Thomas Anderson." Day-Lewis had been nominated in the category three times previously and won in 1989 for his performance in My Left Foot. Robert Elswit earned the award for Best Cinematography; this was his first win, after having been nominated for the 2005 George Clooney film, Good Night, and Good Luck.

Tim Burton's film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd was recognized for Best Art Direction, with awards going to Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo. This was the ninth nomination for Ferretti and the seventh for Lo Schiavo; the duo won for Art Direction for Martin Scorcese's 2004 film, The Aviator.

For complete coverage of the awards, visit oscar.com.

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Click here to add the There Will Be Blood CD plus the free album MP3s, with three exclusive bonus downloads, directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $15.98.

Click here to add the Sweeney Todd deluxe-edition CD, with all 20 songs from the film, plus the free album MP3s, to your Shopping Cart now for only $20.98.

NPR: "There Will Be Blood" Score "Sublime"; "Blood," "Sweeney Todd" at Sunday's Oscars

Tune in to ABC this Sunday night at 8 PM ET to catch the 80th annual Academy Awards, red-carpet glitz and all. Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, will be hosting the ceremonies again this year.

The Tim Burton-directed adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has been nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Actor, Johnny Depp; Art Direction; and Costume Design.

Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood shares the distinction, with No Country for Old Men,  of being the most nominated film this year, each in the running in eight categories. There Will Be Blood is nominated for Picture of the Year; Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Anderson; and Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis. The film is up for Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, and Editing, as well. Jonny Greenwood's score for the film, while among the most critically acclaimed soundtracks of the year, was deemed ineligible due to a Motion Picture Academy technicality.

NPR's Lars Gotrich calls the glitch "both unfortunate and unfair. The soundtrack perfectly exemplifies the main character, the cinematography, and the film's structure all at once." NPR has made the track "Henry Plainview," titled after the film's lead character, its Song of the Day and is streaming the piece on its site.

Gotrich says Greenwood was an "inspired choice" to compose the film's score, calling him "a modern-day John Cale, studying first in classical composition before moving into rock and then seamlessly commingling and alternating styles." He points in the selected track to "glissandos falling like angels from paradise" and concludes: "It's the stuff of what philosopher Edmund Burke called 'the sublime': art that has the power to destroy."

To read the article and listen to the track, visit npr.org.

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As perfectly suited to the film as Greenwood's score is, today's Houston Press reports that Greenwood's music works just as well on its own:

The album works marvelously well because it's a change of pace and Greenwood's writing is so strong ... It will leave you feeling exhausted---in a good way---and transported to another place, the very essence of a successful score ... However wary you might be of bringing soundtracks home and listening to them outside their original context, There Will Be Blood is worthy not because of Greenwood's status, but because of his compositional talents.

To read the full review, visit music.houstonpress.com.

For all the details on this Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony, visit oscars.com.

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Click here to add the There Will Be Blood CD plus the free album MP3s, with three exclusive bonus downloads, directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $15.98.

Click here to add the Sweeney Todd deluxe-edition CD, with all 20 songs from the film, plus the free album MP3s, to your Shopping Cart now for only $20.98.

Punch Brothers Bring Their "Breathtakingly Impressive" Music on the Road

Just a week into their inaugural US tour as Punch Brothers, Chris Thile, Chris Eldridge, Greg Garrison, Noam Pikelny, and Gabe Witcher have already been widely recognized for their stellar playing abilities, and this past Wednesday, another celestial body, the moon, in full eclipse, added extra effect as backdrop to the band's performance at New York City's picturesque Allen Room. The venue's high glass wall looked out onto Central Park under a haunting lunar eclipse as the band celebrated Thile's 27th birthday in truly high style with a set that included songs off their Nonesuch debut, Punch, as well as songs by Radiohead, the Beatles, and the Strokes.

The New York Times' Stephen Holden writes that The Blind Leaving the Blind, the centerpiece of the set and of Punch, "expands the frontier of an emerging style of what might be called American country-classical chamber music." In the new, four-movement piece, writes Holden, "Mr. Thile demonstrated his sensitivity as a composer, ensemble player and singer."

Holden also says of Chris that to call him "the Les Paul of his instrument describes only one aspect of a musician who could just as rightly be compared to a great classical guitarist." He continues:

Although Mr. Thile, an alumnus of Nickel Creek, can toss off witty, jazz-flavored bluegrass solos with breathtaking velocity, his technique is merely the starting point for serious experiments in genre bending that incorporate music ranging from Bach to Radiohead.

To read the review of Wednesday's show, visit nytimes.com.

Punch Brothers continue their US tour when they join the more than 30 bands to converge on Tacoma, Washington, this weekend for the 15th annual Wintergrass Festival for "four days of unforgettable bluegrass musicality," as the event organizers would have it. The festival kicked off last night and continues through the weekend with Punch Brothers headlining in an 11:15 PM set tonight. In addition to the scheduled performances, the festival includes dancing, workshops, vendors, and, most inviting, informal jam sessions among attendees, amateur and professional alike. For more information, visit wintergrass.com.

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Just before kicking off their US tour, Punch Brothers toured the UK. They'll be featured this weekend on British radio, first with a session on tonight's episode of BBC Radio Scotland's Brand New Country, dedicated to the finest music in the country songbook. The show begins at 8 PM GMT, with an encore performance the same time Sunday; listen live around the world at bbc.co.uk/scotland. On Saturday, the band will be featured on BBC Radio 3's World Routes, an exploration of music from around the world with host Lucy Duran, at 3 PM GMT. Listen live at bbc.co.uk/radio3. You can also listen to each show all week at the respective sites' "listen again" features.

Music critics in the UK have responded to the new record as well, with the Sunday Herald out of Scotland giving it four stars and The Sun crediting Punch Brothers with having "invented a new genre ... jazzgrass."

The Independent calls the new record "breathtakingly impressive stuff." The paper's Andy Gill praises the band as being "an association of expert country musicians whose debut does for bluegrass what The Gospel at Colonus did for gospel---develops a folk art into high art." To read the review, visit independent.co.uk.

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Click here to pre-order the Punch Brothers debut CD, Punch, plus free MP3s of the album, set to release on Tuesday, with the exclusive bonus download "Bailey."

Kronos Quartet Returns to Carnegie Hall

Kronos Quartet returns to Carnegie Hall tonight with a performance in Zankel Hall as part of Carnegie's Signatures and Nonesuch at Carnegie series. On the program are five world premieres, including Fernando Otero's El Cerezo (The Cherry Tree) and John Adams's Fellow Traveler, as well as the New York premiere of Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream Suite. The concert begins at 7:30 PM and will be preceded at 6:30 by a conversation in Zankel Hall with David Harrington and Carnegie's director of artistic planning, Jeremy Geffen, open to all ticketed concertgoers.

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In The Advocate review of the Quartet's latest album, The Cusp of Magic, with Wu Man, critic Charlie Richards calls the piece one of composer Terry Riley's "most optimistic, light-hearted, and easily accessible works to date." About the piece, Richards continues:

Despite Riley's [72] years, The Cusp of Magic has a fresh and youthful feel that is lacking in the music of many of Riley’s younger colleagues. Those who already love Riley will most likely adore it, and even those who don't may find themselves charmed by it.

The review is similarly praiseworthy of the album itself:

It is hard to imagine a performance of the piece being given with as much care, love, clarity and tough-edged musicianship than the one exhibited here by Kronos and Wu Man, and, as usual with Nonesuch, the engineering is faultless.

In the end, Richards recommends the album both "to those who love new music---and even to those who have shied away from it in the past."

To read the full, track-by-track review, visit advocate.com.

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Click here to add Kronos Quartet's The Cusp of Magic CD plus free album MP3s, with the exclusive bonus download "Tusen Tankar," directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $13.97.

Click here to add Fernando Otero's Nonesuch debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires CD plus free album MP3s to your Cart for just $13.98.

Gipsy Kings Kick Off US Tour

The Gipsy Kings kick off a month-long tour of the United States with a performance tonight at the Opera House in Boston before heading down to Atlantic City this weekend. They'll make their way to New York City on Monday for a return performance at Radio City Music Hall (pictured at right).

For more information on tour dates and venues, click here.

Audra McDonald Brings Tony-Winning Role to ABC in "A Raising in the Sun"

In 2004, Audra McDonald, Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Sanaa Lathan brought Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun to life with a Broadway revival of the 1959 play, winning Tony awards for McDonald and Rashad. This Monday, February 25, ABC will air a three-hour TV film version featuring the Broadway cast and helmed by Kenny Leon, the production's director. Leon tells the New York Times' that Hansberry's seminal work remains as relevant now as ever: "This play is saying what all the politicians are saying in this election year: It’s time for a change, and it’s time for a dream."

You can read the article and catch a preview clip of the show at