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  • Friday, August 5, 2011

    k.d. lang and will be the guest on today's episode of NPR's World Café, talking with host David Dye about Sing it Loud, her new album with the Siss Boom Bang, and performing songs from the record. lang and the band bring their extensive North American tour back up to her homeland of Canada with performances at the Regina and Edmonton folk festivals this weekend. The Regina festival's artistic director says: "She is breathtaking."

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Artist News, Radio
  • Friday, August 5, 2011

    The Carolina Chocolate Drops follow last weekend's performance at the Newport Folk Festival, which NPR's Ann Powers included among her "Newport favorites," with an opening set for Bob Dylan in Ohio tonight. Says Powers: "Bridging the false divides separating blues from folk from country, this North Carolina band also doesn't hesitate to see the folk in the present day." While in Newport, the Chocolate Drops took some time to record a three-song set for Sleepover Shows. "Let’s just put it out there: The Carolina Chocolate Drops are the reason the Newport Folk Festival exists," asserts Sleepover Shows. Watch the set here.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video
  • Wednesday, August 3, 2011

    The Carolina Chocolate Drops, who open for Bob Dylan this Friday, return to their home state of North Carolina to perform at the Museum of Art in Raleigh on August 27. In honor of the local show, the Chocolate Drops are hosting a special eBay auction, featuring an autographed banjo from the band, to benefit the Center for the Study of the American South in Chapel Hill and its music programming. The auction is open through August 13.

    Journal Topics: Artist News
  • Wednesday, August 3, 2011

    As announced last month, Modern Music, a collaboration between pianists Brad Mehldau and Kevin Hays and composer/arranger Patrick Zimmerli, will be released by Nonesuch on September 20. Now comes the album's cover, which features American Modernist painter Charles Sheeler's Classic Landscape. The album is available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store with an instant download of the title track included at checkout. All About Jazz, reviewing Mehldau's latest solo album, Live in Marciac, raves: "It's a stunning document that somehow manages to satisfy the most basic melodic appetites while still confounding conventional understanding of human capability."

    Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News, Reviews
  • Tuesday, August 2, 2011

    "Crystalline," the first single off Björk's multimedia project Biophilia, is featured on NPR's All Songs Considered. "God bless Björk," says producer Robin Hilton. "We need artists like her ... Something comes along like the iPad or the iPhone, and they just see things differently. They take us in new, completely unexpected directions. They embrace technology and turn it into a new art form. I think that's just amazing." Björk discussed the project with BBC Radio 4's Front Row. Wired features an interview with Scott Snibbe, the leader of the team behind the Biophilia App, and Spinner spoke with some of the inventors behind the unique musical instruments commissioned for the project.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Web, Radio
  • Tuesday, August 2, 2011

    Randy Newman, who performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra over the weekend, concludes his Australian tour with two shows with the Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House this week. The Age and Sydney Morning Herald laud Newman as "one of the greatest songwriters of the past 50 years," whose "work proves yet again that on the big questions, all too often the artists can illuminate the truth better than the essayists, the journalists and, perhaps less surprisingly, the politicians." His recent appearances on ABC Radio National's The Music Show and 702 ABC Sydney Afternoons are now online.

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Artist News, Reviews
  • Monday, August 1, 2011

    The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont, has announced its 2011–12 season, and on the schedule are four Nonesuch artists: k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang open the venue's concert season on September 23, Laurie Anderson follows with her piece Delusion in October, Cheikh Lô joins a multi-artist celebration of James Brown in November, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops play the Flynn in January.

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Artist News
  • Monday, August 1, 2011

    This past weekend, the Newport Folk Festival offered the sold-out crowd two beautiful summer days of music from performers including the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Emmylou Harris, Wanda Jackson, and Chris Thile & Michael Daves. You can now listen to all of those sets online at NPR Music, from the ever "vital and contemporary" Harris to the "blazingly intense music" of Thile & Daves. The Boston Globe says that all the music proved "compelling and indebted to what preceded it."

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Artist News, Reviews, Web, Radio
  • Monday, August 1, 2011

    Malian singer Oumou Sangare concluded her North American tour this weekend with shows in Brooklyn and Maine. "Regal, righteous and funky," exclaims New York Times music critic Jon Pareles, "the Malian singer and songwriter Oumou Sangare commanded the stage of Celebrate Brooklyn! on Friday night at the Prospect Park Bandshell." Through her music and lyrics, this longtime champion of women's rights took on "the traditional West African singer’s role as community conscience while delivering her messages with a modern kick."

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Artist News, Reviews
  • Friday, July 29, 2011

    Nonesuch Records recently published the cover of the forthcoming album featuring Steve Reich's WTC 9/11, performed by Kronos Quartet. The cover and our publishing of it have elicited a considerable response both on this website and elsewhere. Nonesuch Records President Robert Hurwitz offers a comment.

    Journal Topics: Staff
  • Friday, July 29, 2011

    The Newport Folk Festival features sets from Emmylou Harris, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Wanda Jackson, Chris Thile, Michael Daves, plus Sara Watkins with The Decemberists and a special Low Anthem benefit performance ... Kronos Quartet performs Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 at Northern Ireland's Walled City Music Fest ... k.d. lang has three shows in California ... Jessica Lea Mayfield heads South ... Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman close out duo tour at Marciac Jazz Fest ... Randy Newman continues Australian tour in Melbourne ... Donnacha Dennehy's Grá agus Bás closes out Cork's Reich festival ... Oumou Sangare plays free Brooklyn show ... Dawn Upshaw continues at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Fest ... and more ...

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Weekend Events
  • Friday, July 29, 2011

    Sara Watkins will join Garrison Keillor and the cast of public radio's A Prairie Home Companion on another cross-country tour that will take them from Alaska to Alabama this August and September on their second-annual Summer Love Tour. The concert tours will consist of "evenings of passionate duets, hot jazz, Catchup, English Majors and Poesy" and such favorite Prairie Home Companion elements as Guy Noir Private Eye, the Cowboys Dusty and Lefty, and all the latest News from Lake Wobegon.

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Artist News