Carolina Chocolate Drops continue California tour ... Alarm Will Sound joins Dirty Projectors in London ... The Black Keys hit French, Dutch festivals ... Omara Portuondo, Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club come to the States ... Bill Frisell, Joshua Redman play Canadian jazz fests ... Philip Glass closes Cork festival ... Emmylou Harris sells out Atlanta Botanical Gardens ... Punch Brothers headline Garden & Gun's Soul of the South Weekend ... Allen Toussaint plays Bayou Boogaloo ... Sara Watkins kicks off tour with Dar Williams ... and more ...

Punch Brothers close out a banner week with Rhapsody naming their new album, Antifogmatic, Album of the Day, calling its songs "so strong and the emotional impact of the material so direct" that they supersede their complex mix of genres. Relix says: "In the world of acoustic music, mandolinist Chris Thile is arguably the most elastic and wildly imaginative player/singer/composer of his generation. He has met his matches in his fellow Punch Brothers," and their new album "is better than the best of all their worlds."

Today is composer Terry Riley's 75th birthday. The Nonesuch Journal spoke with Kronos Quartet's David Harrington about the group's decades long friendship and working relationship with the composer, celebrated in a concert tonight in California. (Kronos and Riley are pictured here at the composer's 50th birthday party.) "For me he's one of the world leading musical thinkers," says Harrington. "I'm looking forward to many more years together."

In response to the immigration battle currently raging in the US, Ry Cooder wrote the song "Quicksand," which tells the story of six would-be immigrants making their way from Mexico to the Arizona border. The track will be released exclusively on iTunes on June 29, with proceeds going to MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; it has now premiered exclusively on NPR's All Songs Considered blog.

Alarm Will Sound, which released its Nonesuch debut album, a/rhythmia, last September, makes its London debut at Wilton's Music Hall tonight, performing works by Aphex Twin, Autechre, and the Beatles. The ensemble joins Dirty Projectors to perform the latter group's Getty Address at the Barbican tomorrow. The events are part of the Barbican's London Blaze festival, which also includes performances by Caetano Veloso, Youssou N'Dour, Kronos Quartet, and Philip Glass.

Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, featuring Omara Portuondo, was due to kick off a three-city US tour in Brooklyn's Prospect Park tonight. Unfortunately, the performance has been canceled due to visa delays. Instead, a special outdoor screening of Wim Wenders’ classic documentary Buena Vista Social Club will take place. The remainder of the tour, at Ravinia and the Hollywood Bowl, will take place as planned this weekend.

Punch Brothers are back in their adopted hometown of New York City, where they first crafted the songs on their new album, Antifogmatic, for a show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. There's much to celebrate: the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart of new artists. The band will discuss and perform songs from Antifogmatic on WNYC's Soundcheck this afternoon.

Laurie Anderson's long-awaited new album, Homeland, her first studio record in nearly a decade, is out now. Canada's Globe and Mail gives the album four stars, saying it is "blessed with some of the most vivid soundscapes of her career ... [T]he wealth of acoustic detail ensures that there’s something new to discover with each re-hearing." Fenway Bergamot, Anderson's male alter ego, delivers his fifth and final video in the series at nonesuch.com/media.

With the year at its halfway point, NPR's jazz sampler, Take Five, has picked its choices for the Best New Jazz of 2010 (So Far). Two of the five come from Nonesuch: Orchestrion, on which Pat Metheny "makes every instrument an extension of his guitar skills, technical knowledge and sheer artistic willpower," and Highway Rider, on which Brad Mehldau "shows how much he's grown as a composer, and not just a renowned pianist."

Composer Timothy Andres has been nominated for Project 440, a new commissioning program from Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New York radio station WQXR that will culminate in the commissioning of four new works, to be premiered as part of the orchestra's 2011-2012 Carnegie Hall season. Comments from the public, via WQXR's website, will be a guiding factor in determining the final four composers to receive commissions.

Tony Allen has concluded his North American tour with music from his latest album, Secret Agent. The album is featured on NPR's Fresh Air and Afrobeat, which continues to thrive after all these years. "The prime living player to thank for this is Allen, who has keeping up the good work all along," says Fresh Air. "His newest solo album is called Secret Agent, and it sounds like the most fully rounded version of Tony Allen Afrobeat he's ever made."

Laurie Anderson's latest album, Homeland, is out tomorrow. Pitchfork rates the album 8.3, calling it "an exquisite state-of-the-union dispatch as only Anderson, America's darkly comic conscience, can provide ... The music is spacious, mercurial, and thoroughly conceived." The Baltimore Sun , LA Times, and the Independent (UK) give it four stars. Australia's Courier-Mail calls it "some of the most striking music of Anderson's career." MusicOMH gives the album a perfect five stars, exclaiming, "what a work of art it is."