Amadou & Mariam launch their tour of North America with a performance at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, tonight. It's the couple's first such tour since 2009 and includes stops at festivals like Lollapalooza, Central Park SummerStage, Outside Lands, Edmonton Folk, and Osheaga, in addition to headlining shows at theaters and clubs. See below for all of the currently scheduled dates; for additional details and ticket links, go to nonesuch.com/on-tour.

On the tour, Amadou & Mariam will perform songs from Folila, the duo’s critically acclaimed new Because Music / Nonesuch Records album, which features contributions by Santigold, TV on the Radio, Nick Zinner, Theophilus London (who will open for Amadou & Mariam at SummerStage), Bassekou Kouyate, and others. Folila is produced by Marc-Antoine Moreau, who has worked with the duo since their 1999 debut, Sou Ni Tilé. They recorded the songs in New York and then re-recorded them, with more traditional instrumentation, in Bamako. The version of each song on the final album is a composite of tracks from both sessions, meticulously mixed together.

Folila has been named among the Best Albums of 2012 So Far by Rolling Stone magazine and listeners of NPR. Newsweek calls Folila “magic,” Spin deems it “the African record of the year,” and Pitchfork describes it as a “seamless synthesis of the music of their homeland and the music of the rest of the world.” The release prompted Interview to say, “If you’ve heard their songs described as ‘world’ music, you’ve been misled.”

On this summer tour, Amadou (vocals, guitar) and Mariam (vocals) will be backed by a band including Yves Abadi (drums), Yao Dembele (electric bass), Boubacar Dembele (percussion), Charles Frederic Avot (keyboards), and Mo DJ (DJ).

AMADOU & MARIAM ON TOUR IN NORTH AMERICA

* w/ Andrew Bird