Sara Watkins, whose self-titled solo debut album is due out from Nonesuch on April 5, is the subject of a feature article in the Charlotte Observer. She's set to play two shows in North Carolina opening for John Prine this weekend: at Charlotte's Ovens Auditorium tomorrow night and Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville the following night. The Observer says that on the new album, Sara "continues to explore different genres from torchy, playful western swing (Jimmie Rodgers' 'Any Old Time') to pop-rock (Davíd Garza's 'Too Much') to the aching chamber folk (Jon Brion's 'Same Mistake')." Three additional songs from the album are now streaming on Nonesuch Radio.

Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali was released in the States yesterday, and the complete album is streaming today on spinner.com. On the new record, says Vanity Fair , "traditional African beats and melodies underly everything from electronic synth-pop to hip-hop tracks featuring Somali rapper K’Naan." The Root calls the couple "global pop’s band to watch—M.I.A. be damned—as heirs to the storied West African musical throne and as embodiments of the worldly, cosmopolitan flair that defines 21st century hipness ... Before it’s done, the album moves through hip-hop, R&B, rock, traditional Malian and more—often simultaneously." It's all mixed "with an accessible poppy feel," says The Root, "and the result is just plain cool."

Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali makes its US debut with its Nonesuch release today. Details cites "the mind-blowing" Damon Albarn–produced opening track as "a soulful and modern masterpiece"; Time Out New York calls it the album's "jewel in its crown." Blurt describes the album as one of "pure sensual joy, a raft of infectious-rhythmed, ebulliently performed funk-rock-desert-electro-dance songs ... in a music so generous, so inclusive and celebratory that you cannot help feeling a wave of optimism." And in difficult times, "It's just what you need ... really ... Welcome to Mali is for the good times, even in bad times."

Wilco's forthcoming as-yet-untitled Nonesuch release is featured in Rolling Stone's Spring Music Preview, a look "inside 45 of the Year's Biggest Albums." The magazine talks to Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline about the recording process for the new record. "After the live, urgent feel of 2007's Sky Blue Sky," says Rolling Stone, "Wilco is exploring more studio experimentation ... anchored once again by Tweedy's sly, insightful and often heartbreaking lyrics." The article suggests, "An early preview of the disc gives off a strong country vibe, with lots of pedal steel and acoustic guitar."

Amadou & Mariam's latest album, Welcome to Mali, is set for US release on Nonesuch tomorrow. The duo is the subject of a number of feature-length articles about changing perceptions in the West of African musics beyond "world music." The New York Times places them "among the world’s most renowned African musical acts" and says the new album is "less an abandonment of the group’s culture than an updating of it." The Los Angeles Times cites the success of Amadou & Mariam, who "helped define the current African shift," and of Youssou N'Dour, Oumou Sangare, and Rokia Traoré, as examples that "the American cliché of African music is falling apart—or, really, exploding." Detroit Free-Press gives Welcome to Mali four stars, calling it "a spirited invitation to dance away those recession-induced blues and welcome spring ... This is a feel-good album. Don't miss it."

"Composer, pianist and living legend Allen Toussaint has helped shape the sound of R&B, soul and funk while infusing a little bit of New Orleans into it," says KCRW in naming as yesterday's Top Tune the Thelonius Monk–penned title track of Toussaint's forthcoming Nonesuch solo debut, The Bright Mississippi. Toussaint will perform during both weeks of the 40th anniversary New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which runs April 24–30 and May 1–3. Given his prominent place in the festival and the city's musical history, it's no surprise that Toussaint has made his way onto the official JazzFest 2009 poster, by artist James Michalopoulos.

Richard Goode's series of concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra comes to a close Tuesday night. The Boston Globe, in a preview of this May's release of Goode's complete piano concertos with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, looks back at the pianist's 1993 collection of the Beethoven piano sonatas and says it "stands as one of the most important statements made about this music in recent decades." Goode, whom the St. Louis Post-Dispatch calls "a musician's musician," will perform Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto this weekend with David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

The Best of Bill Frisell, Volume 1: Folk Songs, the first collection of tunes culled from Frisell's extensive Nonesuch catalog, is out this week. You can listen to every track from the album streaming on the Nonesuch Radio channel First Listen now. "Two words will sum up anything the exemplary guitarist has turned his hand to: 'very good,'" says the BBC. "But when it comes to his explorations in Americana as on this collection, it's very very good. If you don't already own most of these tracks, beware. Because when you do hear them you'll have to go out and buy all the parent albums that they're culled from."

Bill Frisell has crafted a Nonesuch catalog of more than 20 albums that DownBeat included among "the best recorded output" of the last decade. Now comes the first anthology of songs assembled from that rich catalog in The Best of Bill Frisell, Volume 1: Folk Songs, out this Tuesday. The Independent gives a perfect five stars to this album of "beautiful, ringing musicality: 15 pieces of fathomless depth played with the freshness and simplicity that only genius brings. Make your world anew and treat yourself." The Guardian gives the album four stars, calling it "a delectable collection." All About Jazz calls it "a thing of rare joy and beauty."

Elliott Carter's centennial celebration continues this Tuesday with the release of a four-disc retrospective of the composer's Nonesuch recordings. The Observer says that "with performances from the 1970s and 1980s by some of his best interpreters," this Carter collection is "covetable and historic." The Guardian gives the set four stars, saying this collection, with "a whole clutch of outstanding performances" that first expanded the composer's reach in the UK, "is a must for all Carter admirers."

Dan Auerbach's solo debut, Keep It Hid, is out tomorrow. To mark the occasion, Nonesuch has launched a new Nonesuch Radio station titled "First Listen," where you can hear all the tracks from the album shuffled and streaming through release date. Dan's hometown paper, the Akron Beacon Journal, says that following "the revelation" that was The Black Keys' Attack & Release, Keep It Hid shows "other sides of Auerbach's abilities, such as how he can smooth out his primal, bluesy wail and still imbue his songs with emotion and passion, and can trade blunt force for pastoral melodies without losing the music's power."

The release of Dan Auerbach's solo debut, Keep It Hid, is just a week away now. You may have heard a few of the tracks on the radio or streaming online here on Nonesuch Radio and on Dan's MySpace page. For two days only, today and Wednesday, you can listen to the complete album—all 14 tracks—streaming exclusively on MySpace. Tune in now!