Nonesuch

In 2004, Caetano Veloso curated a week of special concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall and invited his longtime friend and collaborator David Byrne to join him for the show captured here. Each performs an acoustic set of his own songs and also perform together. The Seattle Times calls the concert "an absolute jewel." The Observer gives the album four stars, calling it "an entrancing showcase of their respective talents ... and even on disc a sense of joy and spontaneity is palpable." The Herald says it "leaves the listener grinning from ear to ear."

Recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Who's Feeling Young Now?, the follow-up to 2010's Grammy-nominated Antifogmatic, was produced by Grammy Award winner Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Tom Waits, Modest Mouse) and features ten songs written by Punch Brothers, with the band’s friend Josh Ritter co-writing lyrics on two tunes, plus the group’s take on the Swedish group Väsen’s “Flippen" and what the New York Times calls a "mind-boggling cover of Radiohead’s 'Kid A.'" The album shows "why they are so special," says the Guardian. "This is a remarkable band." Paste says that "every track is a small wonder ... They may have created a masterpiece."

Produced by Danger Mouse and The Black Keys, the band's seventh studio album was recorded at singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in the band’s new hometown of Nashville during the spring of 2011. "They sound like a band who think they've made the year's best rock 'n' roll album," says the Guardian, "probably because that's exactly what they've done." The Independent calls it "by some distance the most powerful, compelling rock album of the year."

Inspired by a news headline about the Wall Street bailout, Ry Cooder began work on Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down with the track “No Banker Left Behind,” an ode to the corrupt few spared from the financial crisis while most were left to fend for themselves. Uncut calls this "one of his best albums ever ... an impassioned portrait of 21st century America and its injustices" in which Cooder is "remade as a modern-day Woody Guthrie, fearless and funny, for like Guthrie he nails his targets with droll humour while empathising with society's underdogs." The BBC calls it "essential listening."

The Trio—"a graceful powerhouse, equally savvy about groove and harmony" (New York Times)—performs 11 previously unreleased songs composed by Mehldau. Many were written as tributes, or “odes,” to real and fictional people, like the late saxophonist Michael Brecker, a character from the film Easy Rider, and the guitarist Kurt Ronsenwinkel. "Ode is an often scintillating and always joyful listen from beginning to end," says MusicOMH. The Chicago Tribune finds Mehldau "in prime form as composer, improviser and bandleader." The Montreal Gazette says: "This may well be his most interesting, absorbing album to date." The Financial Times calls it "benchmark piano-trio jazz."

This album includes three works written for Kronos Quartet by the contemporary Russian composer Vladimir Martynov and features a special guest performance from former Kronos cellist Joan Jeanrenaud on a piece the Times of London describes as "something to treasure" and the Los Angeles Times calls a “masterpiece. The performance, exquisitely recorded, is radiant."

A collection of 11 songs—eight written or co-written by Colvin—All Fall Down is her eighth studio album and the first to be produced by her longtime friend and cohort Buddy Miller (Robert Plant, Solomon Burke). Recorded in Nashville, All Fall Down features performances by Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Jakob Dylan, Bill Frisell, Viktor Krauss, Brian Blade, Stuart Duncan, and Julie Miller, among others. Pre-orders include an instant download of the title track, "All Fall Down."

Works by Krzysztof Penderecki—"Poland's godfather of the musical avant-garde" (Independent)—are paired with the works they inspired by composer/guitarist Jonny Greenwood: Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and Polymorphia (for 48 strings), which inspired Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver and 48 Responses to Polymorphia, respectively. "The results are ear-tingling," says NPR. "What we hear on this album is a meeting of two artistic visionaries connected in a real dialogue."