Randy Newman launches a month-long tour of Europe with a performance at the Sage Gateshead in England tonight, followed by performances in Glasgow, London, Dublin, and throughout Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland. Newman tells the Daily Telegraph about touring: "It keeps me sharp. I worried that there is evidence that says people do their best work before they are 30. But I’m as good or better. I haven’t changed a great deal from when I wrote my first song when I was 23.”

Punch Brothers celebrated the release of their new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?, with a special set at NYC's intimate Rockwood Music Hall last night that was captured in photos by Brooklyn Vegan. The band launches its North American tour outside Boston this Thursday. While in Paris last month, the band met up with the folks at Rolling Stone France to perform a short set. You can watch their performance of the album's title track here.

Carolina Chocolate Drops' new album, Leaving Eden, is due out next week on CD with vinyl to follow on March 20. Catch a sneak peek in a new video preview featuring the band's take on the Hazel Dickens tune "Pretty Bird" here. In the UK, the Independent on Sunday gives the album four stars. The band appeared on BBC Radio 6 Music's The Huey Show, discussing and performing songs from the new album, and are featured in The Arts Desk and the Guardian, which describes their sound as "a form of old-time jug band blues played with contemporary R&B attitude."

Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers, and The Low Anthem have joined celebrated Irish band The Chieftains to mark that group's 50th anniversary with a new album, Voice of Ages. The album, produced by T Bone Burnett, finds The Chieftains performing with these three Nonesuch artists as well as Bon Iver, The Civil Wars, The Decemberists, and others. The New York Times calls it "an album of collaborations with some of the hottest young folk, country, bluegrass, rockabilly and indie-rock talents on both sides of the Atlantic." The Low Anthem will be The Chieftains' special guests on stage at Carnegie Hall on St. Patrick's Day.

Björk played the last of her NY Hall of Science shows of her NYC Biophilia residency last weekend and plays the first of five nights at Roseland Ballroom tomorrow. NPR's All Songs Considered spoke with app developer Max Weisel, who plays the project's custom-made instruments onstage, including musical Tesla coils. Weisel gives Bob Boilen, host of All Songs Considered, a tour of the stage set-up and a demonstration of how it works. Watch it here. In this week's issue of The New Yorker, Björk talks with Alex Ross about the educational component of the project for public school students.

This President's Day weekend, Punch Brothers kick off their North American tour in North Carolina and return to NYC for their record release show ... Sérgio & Odair Assad perform in Berkeley ... Björk plays final NY Hall of Science show ... Carolina Chocolate Drops head down the East Coast ... Emmylou Harris plays closing set of Warren Hellman tribute concert in San Francisco ... Dr. John closes Asian tour in Hong Kong ... Kronos Quartet, Alim Qasimov Ensemble head South ... The Low Anthem tours Canada with City and Colour ... Joshua Redman is in Istanbul ... Allen Toussaint, Trombone Shorty are in Tallahassee ... Dawn Upshaw sings with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra ... and more ... 

The Black Keys visited the BBC's Maida Vale studios earlier this week for a special episode of BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe show, which included a 40-minute set for a live studio audience that was webcast live. You can watch their performance of "Lonely Boy" here. This Sunday, CBC Television in Canada will be airing a feature-length interview The Black Keys gave CBC Radio Q; watch a preview here.

Ry Cooder, having just premiered one new song, “Going to Tampa,” has now lent another new song, “The Mutt Romney Blues,” to a short satirical video by the progressive activists Brave New Films. The song and video tell the now well-known tale of the unusual al fresco car ride of Mitt Romney’s dog, only this time from a decidedly different perspective: that of the trusty pooch himself. This dog’s tune is, of course, a blues. Watch the video here.

Steve Reich will make a rare visit to Australia this April for the launch of a new series at the Sydney Opera House called The Composers. From April 26 to 29, the House will stage The Composers: Steve Reich in Residence, featuring a workshop with students from the Flagship Sydney Youth Orchestras, a conversation at Sydney Opera House, and a culminating performance by Synergy Percussion, eighth blackbird, and others.

Carolina Chocolate Drops, whose new album, Leaving Eden, is due out February 28, are touring the US and have just added a number of new tour dates to their schedule this spring, including several headlining shows in the Midwest and down South, as well as five shows supporting the Dave Matthews Band in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Massachusetts. Ticket presales are available to DMB fans starting this morning.

Kronos Quartet's latest album, Music of Vladimir Martynov, has been named the Album of the Week by Q2 Music, the New York-based online new-music station of WQXR. The album opens with The Beatitudes, which "beams with religious ecstasy and provides an easy gateway to the meatier subjects," says Q2. "Enter with fortitude, but expect euphoria." Kronos Quartet will give the New York premiere of one of the pieces at Carnegie Hall on February 28.

Punch Brothers celebrate the release of their new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?, with a performance of "New York City" on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. Paste calls it "phenomenal." On this, their "unquestionably finest" album yet, "the multi-talented quintet wisely continue doing what they do best: crafting off-kilter, classically-tinged pop songs that sound like absolutely no other band on the planet ... [E]very track is a small wonder of some sort," says Paste. "They may have just crafted a masterpiece of their own." The Wrap and Reuters call it "terrific." Rolling Stone says: “The acoustic framework dazzles—wild virtuosity used for more than just virtuosity.”