journal.nonesuch.com

NY Times: The Black Keys / Danger Mouse Collaboration Proves "Potent"

With just one more day to go before the release of Attack & Release, The Black Keys new Danger Mouse-produced album, and just hours to go before pre-orders can be downloaded from the Nonesuch Store (starting midnight ET), the band will be live in the KCRW studio in Los Angeles for Morning Becomes Eclectic beginning at 11:15 AM PT today. Fans in LA can tune in on 89.9 FM; the station also streams live from kcrw.com.

In today's New York Times, music critic Nate Chinen reviews the new album, writing of Pat and Dan's collaboration with Danger Mouse: "Happily, the results are not just evident but potent. While the sound of this blues-rock duo has been fleshed out, none of its grit has been glossed." Chinen finds that the producer "nudged the duo ever so slightly from their comfort zone," while "the meat of the album" remains Dan's "searing vocal and guitar work." To read the review, visit nytimes.com.

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Back in the band's home state of Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer gives the new album an A, with the paper's pop music critic John Soeder calling the collaboration "not business as usual," writing:

The results are splendiferous, starting with the opening track, "All You Ever Wanted." It's perfect for a lazy afternoon on a back porch, at least until the monster organ roars to life, signaling a rethink of the minimalist Black Keys sound. Other songs tastefully incorporate everything from banjo to vintage synthesizers, without crossing the line into overkill.

Soeder says of the duo's drummer that Pat "remains a one-man wrecking crew" and of singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach:

As usual, he doesn't sound like a dude from Akron. So exactly how is a dude from Akron supposed to sound? I don't know, but he isn't supposed to sound like Auerbach, an old soul trapped in a young man's body. His fuzzy guitar riffage is first-rate, too; for proof, listen no further than the ferocious "Strange Times."

To read Soeder's review, visit cleveland.com.

And in Akron, writing in The Black Keys' hometown paper, the Akron Beacon Journal, reviewer Malcolm X Abram writes that the album's producer "doesn't dominate or attempt to force his sound (which to his credit can be difficult to define), but instead adds colors to the band's palette." Abram calls Attack & Release "the band's most interesting collection of songs and sounds, a record that works best when enjoyed in its 39-minute, 11-track entirety."

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Weighing in from the UK, gigwise.com gives the album four stars, with this poetic description of the band's sound:

A drum kit constantly ringing, a tin beehive guitar sound and vocals that is as much Bob Dylan as a Southern Baptist Preacher, Attack & Release is the god-given birth right of everyone from Robert Johnson to Jimi Hendrix ... Attack & Release is a original and dynamic album with a sonic blast that'll clear the cobwebs off your dusty stereo and get you reaching for that volume knob. If this is blues in the 21st century, then its going to be a hell of a century!

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You can catch the "Strange Times" music video at nonesuch.com/theblackkeys. The video is up for Freshman contender of the week on mtvU, with the week's winner to be announced on the channel and at mtvU.com next Monday. To cast your vote, click here.

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Click here to pre-order the Attack & Release CD for $13, with the album MP3s at no additional charge and available for download tonight at 12 AM ET.

Boston Globe: Laurie Anderson's "Homeland" May Be Her "Most Intruiging Work" Yet

Laurie Anderson began the national tour of her new piece, Homeland, with the US premiere in New York's Zankel Hall last Wednesday, before moving on to Massachusetts this past weekend for a performance at Boston's Opera House on Saturday.

The Boston Globe's Tristram Lozaw calls the new piece "an austere, epic examination of contemporary American culture," though one that is "more social satire than political diatribe and always delivered with a poetic zeal." Lozaw suggests that "musically, Homeland is perhaps Anderson's most sophisticated and intriguing work," and asserts:

For all her avant-garde reputation and coded contemplations on the human condition, Laurie Anderson remains one of our most charismatic modern storytellers, the gold standard in musical commentary. Softly chilled, a bit eerie, and uniquely curious, yes, but above all she's provocative, amusing, and friendly.

To read the complete review, visit boston.com.

The next stop on the Homeland tour is Akron's EJ Thomas Hall this Friday, April 4.

k.d. lang Concert to Air on Canadian TV Tomorrow Night

The Bravo! Canada network's award-winning series Live at the Rehearsal Hall will feature k.d. lang and her band in concert performing songs from Watershed and favorites from throughout her career. The show will debut tomorrow night, April 1. Past episodes of the series have featured a broad array of artists, including Beck, Feist, Rufus Wainwright, and Philip Glass. For more information, visit bravo.ca.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

Guardian: Four Stars for Brad Mehldau Trio "State-of-the-Art" Live Album

This week marked the release of the Brad Mehldau Trio's two-disc Live set, recorded during the group's weeklong residency at the Village Vanguard in October 2006; The Guardian (UK) gives four stars to the latest album from this "prodigiously gifted pianist" and his trio, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard. Reviewer John Fordham writes that Live offers what audiences have come to expect from Brad, namely "state-of-the-art contemporary jazz piano," or more specifically:

a new mix of standard songs and deconstructed pop themes; a new level of understanding within his group; a new twist on old piano-trio rules; and a startling new freedom in the way the pianist's left hand cajoles, threatens and encourages his right.

To read the complete review, visit music.guardian.co.uk.

Also available to fans around the world, exclusively through the Nonesuch Store, is an all-MP3 album of the complete recordings from the three Friday night sets of the Trio's 2006 Vanguard residency, including 15 tracks of works by Brad, Thelonious Monk, Benny Goodman, Paul Simon, and Radiohead.

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Click here to add the 2-CD set Brad Mehldau Trio Live directly to your Shopping Cart for $17, along with that album's MP3s at no additional charge.

Click here to add The Complete Friday Night Sets MP3s to your Cart for $20.

The Sun (UK): Five Stars for The Black Keys' Enthralling "Attack & Release"

The Black Keys' tour is now under way, with the second of two stops in Arizona slated for tonight at Tempe's Marquee Theatre, and their new album, Attack & Release, hits stores this Tuesday. Reviews are already started to come in, with The Sun (UK) giving the record a perfect five stars and reviewer Simon Cosyns calling it "the fifth and probably greatest album by the duo."

Cosyns credits producer Danger Mouse with having "simply allowed them to play to their raw, dirty, uninhibited strengths while bringing cohesion to the sound and colour through subtle touches." The reviewer also exclaims that "Dan Auerbach has never sung better, letting his soulful moan soothe on the slower, softer tracks and enthral when the pace quickens against meatier backdrops."

To read the review, visit thesun.co.uk. You'll also find an interview with Dan, in which he discusses his influences, the roots of the new album, and what it was like teaming up with Danger Mouse.

Also out of the UK, The Independent gives the album four stars, with writer Andy Gill crediting Danger Mouse with adding "layers of character and mystery to the duo's core blues-rock." Gill calls particular attention to the song "Psychotic Girl," which, he writes, "is great, a striding swamp-funk groove complete with sinister Gris-Gris-style backing vocals over a woozy organ and slide-guitar motif." To read that review, visit independent.co.uk.

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Click here to pre-order the Attack & Release CD for $13, with the album MP3s at no additional charge and available for download at 12:01 ET on release day, April 1.

k.d. lang to Perform on the "Tonight Show" Tonight

The US leg of k.d. lang's Watershed tour ended earlier this week with two shows at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, but today offers two chances to catch k.d. on TV here.

Tune in to Live with Regis & Kelly this morning for an encore broadcast of k.d.'s recent performance on the show. And tonight, k.d. and the band will perform live on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno; the show begins at 11:35 PM ET.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

New Yorker Blog: Chris Thile "Stands Above" Most Composers of His Generation

Chris Thile is the recipient of the "overwhelming admiration" of the New Yorker's Russell Platt, who writes in the magazine's "Goings On" blog that, despite Chris's not being "properly a classical musician ... [his] work is so wide-ranging and restlessly imaginative that he stands above most of the 'classical' composers that my generation has managed to produce."

Platt cites the classical compositional influences heard on Thile's The Blind Leaving the Blind, the centerpiece of Chris and his fellow Punch Brothers' Nonesuch debut, Punch, and suggests its lyrics are reminiscent of Joni Mitchell's. He finds the other pieces on the album "no less enthralling in their ingenious whirl of influences (including Philip Glass and French chanson)."

To read the complete entry, visit newyorker.com.

Punch Brothers began the second leg of their US tour this week and make three stops in North Carolina this weekend. For tour information, click here.

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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 $16.

The Black Keys Kick Off US Tour Tonight in Tucson

The Black Keys kick off their US tour tonight at the Rialto Theatre in Tucson, Arizona, tonight at 8 PM. Opening for the band tonight and through April 15 is Jay Reatard; for the remainder of the dates, fellow Ohioans Buffalo Killers open. To mark the occasion, you can listen to a stream of the entire album available now at rhapsody.com.

                                                                                                                       

Thu 3/27/08	Tucson, AZ	Rialto Theatre
Fri 3/28/08	Tempe, AZ	Marquee Theatre
Sat 3/29/08	San Diego, CA	House of Blues
Sun 3/30/08	Pomona, CA	Glasshouse
Tue 4/1/08	Los Angeles, CA	Wiltern Theatre
Wed 4/2/08	San Francisco, CA	Warfield Theatre
Fri 4/4/08	Portland, OR	Crystal Ballroom
Sat 4/5/08	Seattle, WA	Showbox SoDo
Sun 4/6/08	Vancouver, Canada	Commodore Ballroom
Wed 4/9/08	Denver, CO	Ogden Theatre
Thu 4/10/08	Omaha, NE	Slowdown
Fri 4/11/08	Minneapolis, MN	First Avenue
Sat 4/12/08	Chicago, IL	Riviera Theatre
Sun 4/13/08	Indianapolis, IN	The Vogue
Tue 4/15/08	Royal Oak, MI	Royal Oak Music Theatre
Mon 5/12/08	Washington, DC	9:30 Club
Tue 5/13/08	Washington, DC	9:30 Club
Thu 5/15/08	New York, NY	Terminal 5
Fri 5/16/08	Philadelphia, PA	The Fillmore
Sat 5/17/08	Boston, MA	Orpheum Theatre

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Click here to pre-order the Attack & Release CD for $13, with the album MP3s at no additional charge and available for download on release day, April 1.

The Black Keys' New Album Playing on Jukeboxes Nationwide Now

The Black Keys' new Danger Mouse-produced album, Attack & Release, will be available in less than a week, but you don't have to wait that long to play it. More than 10,000 internet-connected AMI jukeboxes in bars across the country are featuring the album in advance of the release, so ask your favorite bartender if your local watering hole is one of them. Also on the jukeboxes will be clips from the "Strange Times" video.

You can watch the video and listen to three full songs off the album at nonesuch.com/blackkeys.

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Click here to pre-order the Attack & Release CD for $13, with the album MP3s at no additional charge and available for download on release day, April 1.

Toumani Diabate Announces European Tour for "The Mande Variations"

Toumani Diabate will launch a European tour next month in support of his new solo album, The Mande Variations, with the first stop in Paris on April 25. See below for complete tour information.

Here is a performance of "Cantelowes," the closing track off The Mande Variations, from the album's live world premiere earlier this year at the prestigious El Real Alcazar de Sevilla in Spain. The Independent (UK) called the event "a performance that surpasses anything ... for sheer scale of ambition and technical achievement."

                                                                                                                       

Fri 4/25/08	Paris, France	Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
Sat 4/26/08	Paris, France	Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
Sun 4/27/08	Madrid, Spain	Centro de la Villa
Fri 5/2/08	London, UK	St Lukes
Sat 5/3/08	Manchester, UK	Royal Northern College of Nusic
Sun 5/4/08	Gateshead, UK	The Sage
Tue 5/6/08	Bristol, UK	St George's
Wed 5/7/08	Dartington, UK	Great Hall
Fri 5/9/08	Kampen, Netherlands	Stadsgehoorzaal
Sat 5/10/08	Groningen,   Netherlands	De Oosterport
Sun 5/11/08	Brussels, Belgium	Ancient Belgique
Tue 5/13/08	Eindhoven,   Netherlands	MC Frits Philips
Thu 5/15/08	Antwerp, Belgium	Zuiderpershuis
Fri 5/16/08	Utrecht, Netherlands	Rasa
Sat 5/17/08	Rotterdam,   Netherlands	De Doelen
Sat 5/24/08	Berlin, Germany	Passionskirche
Sun 5/25/08	Hamburg, Germany	Fabrik
Mon 5/26/08	Frankfurt, Germany	Brotfabrik
Wed 5/28/08	Oporto, Portugal	Casa da Musica
Sat 5/31/08	Lisbon, Portugal	Culturgest

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Click here to add The Mande Variations CD plus the free album MP3s to your Shopping Cart now for only $16.

Financial Times Gives Four Stars to New Brad Mehldau Trio Live Album

Today marks the release of Brad Mehldau Trio Live, the new live 2-CD set capturing the Trio, including bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard, in its weeklong October 2006 residency at New York's historic Village Vanguard. The Financial Times gives the record four stars, calling the group's leader "brimful of ideas."

Reviewer Mike Hobart says the album "spins even the simplest structures of pop and indie-rock into fantasias of melodic poise and harmonic development" and finds it full of "fertile re-interpretations of Seattle grunge, bossa nova and the American songbook." To read the full review, visit ft.com.

Also available today, exclusively in the Nonesuch Store, is an all-MP3 album of the complete recordings from the three Friday night sets of that 2006 residency. The sets include 15 tracks of works by Brad, Thelonious Monk, Benny Goodman, Paul Simon, and Radiohead---over three hours of music---and are available as standard-sized 128 kbps MP3s or larger, audiophile-quality 320 kbps files for the same low price.

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Click here to add the 2-CD set Brad Mehldau Trio Live directly to your Shopping Cart for $17, along with that album's MP3s at no additional charge.

Click here to add The Complete Friday Night Sets MP3s to your Cart for $20.

Guardian: Black Keys' "Remarkable New Album" Marks "Huge Step Forward"

With now just a week to go before the release of Attack & Release, The Black Keys' Danger Mouse-produced new record, The Guardian (UK)'s Will Hodgkinson takes a look at this "remarkable new album" and the band's Akron roots. Hodgkinson sums it up this way:

Musically, the album is a huge step forward. Everything from flute to glockenspiel has been added to the guitar-and-drums set-up, and the sound has shades of R&B pioneers Booker T and the MGs, as well as the Beatles at their most psychedelic. At the same time, it still sounds like the product of two young misfits from suburban Ohio.

To read the article, visit music.guardian.co.uk. For more on the band's hometown, see yesterday's Nonesuch Journal article with a Wall Street Journal video tour of Akron with the band.

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Click here to pre-order the Attack & Release CD for $13, with the album MP3s at no additional charge and available for download on release day, April 1.

Toumani Diabate, Punch Brothers Selected for Songlines' "Top of the World"

Toumani Diabate graces the cover of the April/May issue of Songlines magazine, out of the UK, on newstands now. He's also included in "Top of the World," the magazine's editor's-choice collection of the ten best new releases, which features the track "Ali Farka Toure" off Toumani's new solo kora album, The Mande Variations.

Listen to "Ali Farka Toure" here:

Songlines' Nigel Williamson calls the album title's reference to Bach's Goldberg Variations "a good analogy, for there's a courtly grace and elegance to these eight long, solo instrumental pieces." Williamson also cites the works' rhythms as being "of an astonishingly subtle complexity" and finds "a voluptuousness in Toumani's endlessly varying contours of interdependent melody, harmony and rhythm that is quite engrossing."  He marvels: "How a solo instrument recorded without overdubs can sound so lush and layered is remarkable ... This is a heroic record in every sense."

The Mande Variations debuts at the top spot on the Songlines World Music Chart.

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Also featured in Songlines' "Top of the World" collection is "Sometimes" off Punch Brothers' Punch. Reviewer Chris Jones calls the album the "masterpiece" that finds Chris Thile to be "a fully matured artist." Of the album's central work, the four-movement The Blind Leaving the Blind, which Thile wrote in response to the pain of divorce, Jones writes:

its intricate changes of pace divide episodic verses that drip with both knotty metaphor and confessional wisdom. Despite references to late night drinking and sorrow, you’re left with an undeniable feeling of the resilience of the spirit, finding salvation through the healing power of music. This is therapy, but of the kind that you feel privileged to witness.

For the complete reviews and more on the "Top of the World" selections, visit songlines.co.uk.

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Click here to add The Mande Variations CD plus the free album MP3s to your Shopping Cart now for only $16.

Click here to add the Punch CD plus free album MP3s, including the bonus download, "Bailey," direct to your Shopping Cart for $16.

The Black Keys Tour Akron with the Wall Street Journal

The Black Keys' latest Nonesuch album, Attack & Release, is due out just a week from tomorrow. With much attention being paid to the evolution of the band's sound, particularly with the inclusion of Danger Mouse as producer on the new record, the Wall Street Journal's John Jurgensen takes a closer look at where the guys are coming from, with a visit to Pat and Dan in their hometown of Akron, Ohio, and what's in store come Tuesday. Attack & Release, writes Jurgensen, "adds flourishes and fresh arrangements to the band's brand of 21st-century blues." To read the article, visit online.wsj.com.

Take a tour of Akron with Pat and Dan, including a walk through the factory where they recorded their 2004 record Rubber Factory, in this video from the article:

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Click here to pre-order the Attack & Release CD for $13, with the album MP3s at no additional charge and available for download on release day, April 1.

Laurie Anderson to Give NY Premiere of "Homeland" at Carnegie Hall This Week

Laurie Anderson takes her latest work, Homeland, across the United States over the next month, starting with its New York premiere in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall this Wednesday. Homeland takes an in-depth look at modern-day America and the interplay between freedom and fear in a time of ongoing war; the Guardian called the piece "breathtaking" upon its performance at the Melbourne International Arts Festival last year. The New York premiere comes on the heels of last week's sold-out event, co-organized by Laurie, at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn marking the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

In an interview for the website wowowow.com posted last week, Laurie describes Homeland this way:

As I wrote more and more songs, it became clear to me that Homeland was getting more and more political. Several of the songs focus on the seismic changes in the United States in the last few years, and include subjects ranging from the war to the media, the environment, and the creation of a surveillance culture.

Ticket availability for Wednesday's event is limited. For more information, visit carnegiehall.org. The tour continues in Boston this weekend with a performance at the city's Opera House. For information on that event, visit worldmusic.org.

The Oregonian: k.d. lang Performance "Simply Outstanding"

This past weekend, k.d. lang's Watershed tour arrived in Portland, Oregon, for two sold-out performances at the Aladdin Theater, which the Oregonian sums up in one word: "wow." The paper's pop-music critic, Luciana Lopez elabortes:

Her voice is simply amazing, controlled and powerful and rich, without seeming labored or strained. She brought the audience to its feet repeatedly, and while I usually rail at unnecessary and undeserved standing ovations, I cannot begrudge her a single moment of her copious applause on Sunday. She was simply outstanding.

To read the full review, visit oregonlive.com.

k.d. will head down to California for two performances at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts this Tuesday and Wednesday before making her way back home to Los Angeles. While in LA, she'll perform on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno; tune in to NBC this Friday night to catch the show.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: k.d. lang Finds "Secret Chord" That Pleased the Crowd

This week, k.d. lang brought her Watershed tour to the West Coast, starting with two sold-out performances at Seattle's Moore Theatre on Wednesday and Thursday. Reviewing the first show for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, writer Mikel Toombs reports:

In "Hallelujah," his classic if increasingly overexposed song, Leonard Cohen wrote about "the secret chord." That's just what fellow Canadian k.d. lang seems to have found, a mere 24 years after releasing her first album. Watershed, her aptly named new CD, finds lang achieving an effortless-sounding blend of the personal and the artistic, while adding Brazilian accents to her resolute torch and twang.

Cohen's "Hallelujah," which k.d. recorded on her Nonesuch debut, 2004's Hymns of the 49th Parallel, remains a show-stopper in her live set. Toombs returns to it when he concludes: "With a subtle nod to saloon singer Frank Sinatra, she sold her songs, none more so than 'Hallelujah.' Despite the hail of recent interpretations, lang made 'Hallelujah' her own, earning a standing ovation."

To read the concert review, visit seattlepi.nwsource.com.

The tour continues this weekend with two more sold-out performances, this time at Portland's Aladdin theater. For more tour information, click here.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

NY Sun: Joshua Redman "At the Top of His Game" at NYC Performances

Joshua Redman continues his weeklong run at New York's famed Village Vanguard with bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Brian Blade through Sunday. The New York Sun's Will Friedwald was at the opening set of the residency this past Tuesday and found Redman to be "constantly playful, exuberant, and at the top of his game. On every number, both the originals and the standards, he made a spectator sport of playing with everything he could."

The trio opened with its rendition of "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top," which Redman recorded for last year's Nonesuch release Back East; Friedwald calls the number "a high-octane, exhilarating ride" that "typified" the rest of the show.

To read the concert review, visit nysun.com.

WNYC's "Soundcheck" Names Toumani Diabate's "Mande Variations" Pick of the Week

Toumani Diabate's new solo album, The Mande Variations, has been named a "CD Pick of the Week" by WNYC's Soundcheck, which calls the recording "an African gem with classical music status." The Mande Variations was selected for the list by the show's executive producer, Gisele Regatao.

You can listen to this week's "CD Picks" segment, with an excerpt of "Elyne Road" from The Mande Variations, at wnyc.org. You can listen to the complete track 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 $16.

Youssou N'Dour to Join Gnarls Barkley, Deerhoof for KCRW's World Festival

On April 1, Youssou N'Dour will stop at the London venue Indig02 as part of a European tour. In advance of the London show, Youssou sat down for an interview with The Independent's Nick Duerden, who calls the singer's latest Nonesuch release, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take),

an infectious, highly rhythmic delight, his voice permeating everything like a snake in a hurry. As ever, he sings almost exclusively in Wolof, but for those of us not fluent in the language, its emotion shines through.

To read the interview, visit independent.co.uk.

Later this year, Youssou will be among the performers at the 10th running of KCRW's World Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. He's scheduled to perform on July 27, sharing the bill with Deerhoof and Gnarls Barkley, whose Danger Mouse produced The Black Keys forthcoming Attack & Release. Other festival participants this summer include Thievery Corporation with Seu George, Bebel Gilberto, Devendra Banhart, Gilberto Gil , Feist, and Michael Franti & Spearhead, whose song "Oh My God" appears on the soundtrack to HBO's The Wire ... and all the pieces matter.

Solomon Burke, another contributor to the Wire soundtrack, will play the Hollywood Bowl with Etta James on August 13; also performing at the venue this summer is Brian Wilson, who is slated to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic to close their summer season, September 12-14.

You'll find the complete KCRW World Festival schedule and artist listing on pitchforkmedia.com. For the complete Hollywood Bowl schedule, visit hollywoodbowl.com.

All About Jazz: Mehldau Trio's "Live" 2-CD Set Is "Exceptional"

This Tuesday, March 25, the Brad Mehldau Trio, with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums, will release the two-CD Live album, its first recording since Day Is Done, the group's 2005 Nonesuch debut. In the record review for All About Jazz, writer John Kelman finds Brad's already expansive "musical cosmopolitanism ... broadened even further."

Kelman points particularly to Mehldau's soloing on the group's 23-minute rendition of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" as the moment when

the music enters territory freer than anything the trio has approached before. Its conversational aesthetic drives further shifts where delineated solos don't detract from the trio's undeniable democracy; rhythmic and harmonic migrations being so seamless as to feel preplanned when they are clearly spontaneous.

About the album, the review concludes:

It's the trio's increasing open-mindedness that distinguishes Live from its previous live outings. Refined simplicity contrasts with sophisticated complexity while spare economy coexists alongside busier dynamics, making Live another exceptional milestone in a career defined by gradual but unrelenting growth and exploration.

To read the full review, visit allaboutjazz.com.

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Click here to pre-order the two-cd Live album now, with the album MP3s available for download at no additional cost on Tuesday.

NY Times: Metheny Trio Brings "Brilliant" Music of "Day Trip" to Town Hall

Pat Metheny, a native son of Lee's Summit, Missouri, outside of Kansas City, will be among the inductees into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Lawrence, Kansas, this Saturday. The honor comes just two weeks after the Pat Metheny Trio held a sold-out fund-raising concert near Lee's Summit for the Metheny Music Foundation, which supports music education in area schools. For more information, visit kansascity.com.

This past Tuesday, the Trio brought its extensive US tour to a close with a sold-out show in Pat's adopted hometown of New York City. New York Times' jazz critic Nate Chinen reports that the tour closer at Town Hall covered many bases while always maintaining its focus: "Mr. Metheny's trio was playing jazz," he writes, "the genuine article."

Of Pat's performance, Chinen says:

There was marvelous concentration in his playing and an orchestral fullness to his sound ... Mr. Metheny improvised throughout with passion and erudition, combining mercurial fretboard runs with more limpid, searching phrases. And he gave his partners equal say.

Those partners, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Antonio Sanchez, shone both as individual players and as part of a cohesive team they have built over years of playing together. Chinen finds:

Each of these performances ... conveyed the message that intensity can take the form of a whisper as well as a roar ... [T]heir brilliant new studio album, Day Trip, was recorded in a single day in 2005---and their rapport has strengthened and deepened.

To read the review, visit nytimes.com.

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Click here to add the Pat Metheny Trio's Day Trip CD plus the free album MP3s, with two exclusive live bonus downloads, directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $16.

The Black Keys Kick Off MOJO Club Series in London

The Black Keys are in London to play a special show tonight at Wilton's Music Hall, an intimate, 300-seat theater, featuring music from their forthcoming Nonesuch record, Attack & Release, and helping to relaunch the monthly MOJO Club series, presented by MOJO magazine.

"We love playing England," the Keys' Dan Auerbach told the magazine. "We have a few interesting ideas in terms of what we can do as a two-piece this time around, and we can't wait to get out there and see if they work."

For more information, visit mojo4music.com.

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Click here to pre-order the Attack & Release CD for $13, with the album MP3s at no additional charge and available for download on release day, April 1.

Chris Thile Performs Tonight for NYC Venue's 10th Anniversary

Chris Thile will perform a special solo set tonight at New York's intimate performance space The Living Room as part of a monthlong tenth-anniversary celebration of the club. Chris's set is scheduled to kick off at 11:30 PM, following a number of other performances beginning at 7:30 PM at the Lower East Side venue.

The tenth-anniversary celebration began last night with a tribute to the music of Elvis Costello and continues through April 4 with performances by Norah Jones, Ron Sexsmith, Jesse Harris, Joseph Arthur, Joan as Police Woman, and Ollabelle.

For more information, visit livingroomny.com.

Punch Brothers start up the next leg of their US tour in support of Punch next week with a performance at Singletary Recital Hall in Lexington, Kentucky, on Wednesday, March 26. For more tour dates, click here.

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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 $16.

David Byrne, Laurie Anderson Mark Iraq War Anniversary with Anti-War Benefit

Earlier this week, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, and a number of other artists marked the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq with Speak UP!, a music, dance, spoken-word, and art event organized by Anderson and the singer Antony at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse to benefit the anti-war groups NYC United for Peace and Justice and Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Among the performance highlights, according to Rolling Stone magazine, was Byrne's two-song set, in which he, "armed with a four-person choir, led an art-gospel sermon full of huge choruses ... Byrne's mesmerizing presence kept his pair of originals spiraling heavenward."

MTV reports that the aforementioned choir comprised two members of Scissor Sisters, Damien Rice, and Norah Jones, whose own set included a rendition of Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today."

For photos from the event, visit brooklynvegan.com.

The Black Keys' "I Got Mine" Now Streaming at Nonesuch.com

"I Got Mine," track two off The Black Keys forthcoming Nonesuch album Attack & Release, has been added to the Nonesuch Radio and to nonesuch.com/theblackkeys. You can now listen to full-length streams of three songs off the album there, also including "Strange Times" and "Psychotic Girl"; watch the music video for "Strange Times"; and play the online video game TBK Lazerz.

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Click here to pre-order the Attack & Release CD for $13, with the album MP3s at no additional charge and available for download on release day, April 1.

Jonny Greenwood Piece to Be Performed by Alabama Symphony

Jonny Greenwood's composition Popcorn Superhet Receiver, parts of which can be heard in the score for There Will Be Blood, will be performed by the Alabama Symphony Orchestra on April 10 as part of its  Classical Edge series. Greenwood originally wrote the piece for the BBC Orchestra while he was its composer-in-residence; that orchestra is also featured on the There Will Be Blood soundtrack recording. Popcorn Superhet Receiver received its US premiere this past January as part of the Wordless Music Series in New York.

For ticket and further program information on the April 10 performance, visit alabamasymphony.org.

You can listen to three tracks from There Will Be Blood, including "Proven Lands," with music from Popcorn Superhet Receiver, at nonesuch.com/twbb.

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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.

BBC: Fernando Otero's Nonesuch Debut "Alive with Invention and Emotion"

Fernando Otero's Nonesuch debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires, "feels like page one of a very exciting book for Otero," writes the BBC's Tim Nelson in his review of the record. Nelson points to the "musical insiders" like Quincy Jones, Paquito D'Rivera, and Chico O'Farrill with whom Fernando has worked in the past and exclaims that the Argentine pianist-composer's own album, "with its sudden stops and starts, reckless experimentation and assured flourishes is a seemingly endless exciting series of first pages."

The BBC review goes on to describe Pagina de Buenos Aires as

an album that combines the rigors of classical structure with the freedom and daring of jazz. The album covers a lot of ground, from jaunty and fast-paced ensemble pieces ... to altogether more wistful and yearning pieces ... Otero's album is urbane and exotic, surreal and streetwise, and alive with invention and emotion.

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

Chico O'Farrill's son Arturo leads his Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra in a performamce of new works by Latin American composers, including Fernando, at New York's Symphony Space March 27 and 29. For program and ticket information, visit symphonyspace.org.

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Click here to add the Pagina de Buenos Aires CD plus free album MP3s direct to your Shopping Cart for $14.

Boston Herald: Trio Brings Out Best in Metheny

The Pat Metheny Trio arrives in Pat's home base of New York City for a performance at Town Hall tonight at 8 PM. On Sunday night, they were up in Massachusetts playing the Somerville Theatre; as the Boston Herald reports, "the trio format brings out the best in guitar virtuoso Pat Metheny" with the current lineup "arguably his best yet."

Reviewing Sunday's set for the Herald, Christopher John Treacy finds that bassist Christian McBride and drummer Antonio Sanchez add "a spirit of youth and renewal" to the line-up, and "judging by the volatile chemistry the three concocted ... on Sunday, the inspiration is reciprocal."

To read the review, visit bostonherald.com.

Reporting for Bloomberg News, writer Patrick Cole concurs that "the trio has been a winning formula for Metheny, generating some of his best work." As Pat explains it in an interview with the news agency:

Playing trio is something that offers the maximum of blank, white paper with the same kind of feeling that you get with a full band. You always have lots of room to play, and that's what keeps bringing me back to it.

Cole examines how this group dynamic manifests itself on the Trio's recent Nonesuch release:

On Day Trip, Metheny's singular sound and bright melodies are front and center on every track. McBride is a double threat who can coax bluesy solos from an upright bass as if he were playing a guitar, then become virtually invisible as he blends into Sanchez's sizzling cymbals.

To read the article, visit bloomberg.com.

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Click here to add the Pat Metheny Trio's Day Trip CD plus the free album MP3s, with two exclusive live bonus downloads, directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $16.

David Byrne, Laurie Anderson Participate in "Speak UP!" Benefit Tonight

Tonight at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, Laurie Anderson and David Byrne will join a number of artists, including Antony, Blonde Redhead, Bill T. Jones, Norah Jones, Moby, Lou Reed, Damien Rice, and The Scissor Sisters, for Speak UP!, a sold-out benefit concert for peace in Iraq and justice at home. The event marks the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, and will also include an exhibition of photos from Alive Day Memories, portraits of soldiers injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (including the photo at right, of John Jones). Emceeing the evening are actor Richard Belzer and Air America Radio host Laura Flanders. 

The concert will be preceded by Speak Out!, a free event beginning at 4 PM at the nearby powerHouse Arena. Featured speakers include Flanders, author Naomi Klein, and Donna Lieberman, head of the New York Civil Liberties; among other highlights will be the screening of footage from the documentary Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan.

For more information, visit stannswarehouse.org.

Joshua Redman Kicks Off Week of Village Vanguard Shows

Joshua Redman sets up shop at New York City's Village Vanguard tonight for a week's residency at the legendary jazz venue with Reuben Rogers on bass and Brian Blade on drums, who also appear on his latest Nonesuch release, Back East. From tonight through Sunday, the group will perform 12 shows, with a 9 PM and 11 PM set each night.

For more information, visit villagevanguard.com.

k.d. lang Closes East Coast Leg of Tour "Just Right"

Now on her way to the West Coast for tour dates this week in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, k.d. lang recently played the last shows on the East Coast leg of her Watershed tour with stops in Connecticut and upstate New York.

Following last Thursday's show in Schenectady, New York, the Daily Gazette reports that k.d.'s "voice had all its sass, strength and spice." Writes reviewer Michael Hochanadel:

Lang's voice was a wonder all night, bolstered by precise microphone technique, unerring musical and emotional pitch, and dictionary-pure diction. She's such a powerful instrument that her band could have disappeared altogether, except that they perfectly fit her songs and voice. It was omni-pop, with a prairie provinces accent, and it was just right.

To read the full review, visit dailygazette.com.

The Albany Times Union's Greg Haymes expresses a similar sentiment in his review of Thursday's show, calling k.d. "simply the best singer on the planet." Haymes reports:

She sang all but one of the songs from Watershed, and she sang them gloriously ... Through it all, the one constant was her incredible voice ... And it wasn't really all about the power of her voice, either, but rather the extended moods that she was able to create and the unbelievable grace and effortlessness with which she sang.

That review can be found at timesunion.com.

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The Buffalo News's pop music critic Jeff Miers found Saturday's show at the University of Buffalo to be similarly successful. He writes:

In terms of sheer virtuosity, few could compete with lang, whose instrument is a rich, versatile one capable of holding notes in perfect tune, seemingly for as long as lang feels like holding them, and boasting complete mastery of falsetto, elegant vibrato and, to top it off, one of a kind microphone technique ... What an outstanding sense of control over a song's unfolding lang has. It's simply masterful, and humbling to behold.

In Miers' estimation, k.d. has "never made a less than excellent album, and the new Watershed is quite possibly Ingénue's equal," he exclaims, referring to her breakthrough 1992 album.

"Lang makes singing seem like a noble endeavor," Miers concludes, "one that actually brings something positive into the world, at least for a while."

To read the review, visit buffalonews.com.

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The Hartford Courant reports that the trademark "purity of her voice" and "relaxed delivery" were on