Here Lies Love, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's two-CD song cycle on the life of Imelda Marcos, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered Saturday. Here Byrne is seen signing copies of the album at the MoMA Store in New York. There's also an interview with Guernica magazine about the project. The Charleston Post and Courier says the Byrne/Slim collaboration makes for "the perfect combination."

Natalie Merchant and her recently released Nonesuch debut, Leave Your Sleep, were the subject of a feature article in the Sunday New York Times. Merchant spoke with Times writer Jon Pareles about the project and all that went into making it. The Boston Herald gives the album an A, calling it "a contender for 2010’s best album." The Financial Times gives it five stars. The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and the Brisbane Times all give four stars to this "staggeringly elaborate project."

Laurie Anderson, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Emmylou Harris make Record Store Day appearances ... Louis Andriessen curates at Carnegie Hall ... The Black Keys play CMU and FLA ... Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz curate at The Stone ... The Low Anthem plays Brooklyn ... Pat Metheny tours the Southwest ... Punch Brothers conquer California ... Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau duo in New York state ... Rokia Traoré rounds out US tour ... Caetano Veloso hits SFJAZZ ... Sarah Watkins celebrates Earth Day in Nashville ... Glenn Kotche celebrates Burt Bacharach in Osaka ... and more ...

Sara Watkins will join Garrison Keillor and the cast of public radio's A Prairie Home Companion on a coast-to-coast concert tour this August and September that will take on the everlasting theme of romantic love, fittingly dubbed the Summer Love Tour. The tour kicks off August 10 at the Interlochen Arts Festival and runs through a mid-September closer in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Stephen Sondheim and the cast of A Little Night Music, including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angela Lansbury, and Alexander Hanson, signed copies of the new cast album in New York City last week for more than 250 lucky fans upon the album's release. The day's events have been documented in a new video, now at nonesuch.com/media. The composer presented Lansbury with the Signature Theatre's Stephen Sondheim Award in DC on Monday.

Armenian-Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian's Nonesuch debut album, Gomidas Songs, has been nominated for a Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral Performance. The Junos, Canada's music award, will be presented in a ceremony this Sunday in St. John's, Newfoundland, and will be broadcast on CTV.

Natalie Merchant is in New York City this week to celebrate the release of Leave Your Sleep with a flurry of activity, including a performance on WNYC's Soundcheck today. The Montreal Gazette gives the album a perfect five stars, dubbing it an "instant classic." Blogcritics says: "It's like these melodies and poems had been waiting around all of these years for Natalie Merchant to notice them." fRoots exclaims: "She has triumphed ... Leave Your Sleep is one of those albums that sounds like it just belongs; timeless and classic."

Laurie Anderson is in London for four nights to perform her latest work, Delusion, at the Barbican. The Evening Standard says "Anderson drew us into her dream-like world and fed us stories, poetic anecdotes, observations and meditations" through to the "bold, exciting ending." The Guardian, Times (UK), and Financial Times each give it four stars. She spoke with the BBC about the show and her new album, Homeland, from which will sign copies of a limited-edition vinyl single on Record Store Day, Saturday.

The Low Anthem returned to New York's Bowery Ballroom last night for another unforgettable performance and will stay on in New York through Friday's set at The Bell House in Brooklyn. The concert this Wednesday at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, is noteworthy both as a homecoming for the band and because proceeds from the show will now go to the United Way's Rhode Island Flood Recovery Fund.

Punch Brothers return with their second album, the Jon Brion-produced Antifogmatic, June 15 on Nonesuch. A special deluxe edition includes a four-song instrumental EP and a seven-song DVD filmed during the band’s residency at NYC’s The Living Room. Pre-orders of both the standard and deluxe editions are available now; the first 250 orders of the deluxe include an official Punch Brothers' cocktail recipe guide, signed by the band.

The Black Keys' new album, Brothers, due out May 18, is now available for pre-order as a limited-edition collectible hardbound book / deluxe edition of Brothers online only via the band’s newly redesigned website. The 56-page hardbound book includes never-before-seen live photos and an exclusive lithograph of the band. The Miami New Times previews the band's tour, saying: "Expect loud in all its dimensions, and expect a fathomless depth. Mostly, though, expect to be talking about this show throughout the rest of your life."