"The Blue Hour, a cycle of songs by Caroline Shaw, Angelica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Rachel Grimes and Shara Nova, who sings and narrates its 40 sections, is unforgettable," writes NPR Classical’s Tom Huizenga in naming the album to his list of the year’s ten best. The album has also made NPR Music's list of The 50 Best Albums of 2022 and year's best lists from the Boston Globe, New Sounds, Sequenza 21, and I Care If You Listen, which calls it "stunning."

Lianne La Havas's new, self-titled album has made the Best Albums of 2020 lists of the New York Times and NPR Music. Its songs are "brimming with poised musicality," writes the Times's Jon Pareles. "Graceful melodies, supple guitar syncopations, sophisticated harmonies and a voice that can sparkle with anticipation or cry out in pain capture all the hope and heartache of her narrative." NPR's Suraya Mohamed says: "The songs on this album, La Havas' third and perhaps best, reveal how her sophisticated artistry is made of not just brilliantly crafted lyrics, but a rich musicality, full with gorgeous harmonic voicings, catchy rhythms and soulful melodies."

Sarah Kirkland Snider "asserts her own musical personality as a composer who knows instinctively how to write for the human voice," says Tom Huizenga in his review of her Mass for the Endangered on NPR's All Things Considered, which you can hear here. "Both the choir [Gallicantus] and the 12-member orchestra, conducted by Gabriel Crouch, respond to Snider's music with richly tailored performances ... Through her smart and resplendent exploration of age-old musical formulas, Snider's eco-inspired Mass for the Endangered is a blast from the past that resonates profoundly in the present."

"What happens when a jazz virtuoso sets his sights on a cinematic sound?" ask All Things Considered host Audie Cornish. "Pat Metheny has done just that on his new album, evoking the plush and soaring landscapes of film scores. Reviewer Tom Moon says it's among the most ambitious projects of Metheny's long career." "He's pushing forward, seeking breathtaking and profoundly new vistas," says Moon. "It's got the epic journeys of the Pat Metheny Group and the fiery improvisational exchanges of his more recent jazz sessions. It's also a stretch beyond those horizons into textures and atmospheres not often heard in jazz." Hear the All Things Considered piece here.

Jeff Parker's new album, Suite for Max Brown, is "a demonstration of how jazz mixes it up with other musics these days," says NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross music critic Kevin Whitehead. "Parker invokes his days as a crate-diving club DJ, a job where you can juxtapose beats from all over as long as they serve or creatively stem the flow." You can hear the review here.
 

NPR Music has published its year in review of the best music to have been released in 2019, and among the artists featured across its lists are Caroline Shaw, Attacca Quartet, Vagabon, Yola, The Black Keys, Brad Mehldau, Gaby Moreno, Van Dyke Parks, and Daniel Wohl.

Rolling Stone has published its list of The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s, including two Nonesuch releases: The Black Keys' Brothers at No. 14, "one of their most emotive and cathartic records ... set to beautifully smudgy R&B, soul, and low-fi funk," and Randy Newman's Dark Matter at No. 36, "a gem, perhaps Newman’s most mordant assessment yet of his fellow man."

The cast album for the critically acclaimed Broadway production of David Byrne’s American Utopia is now available digitally; the two-CD version will be released on November 22 and is available to pre-order; a vinyl edition is due this winter. The show includes songs from his 2018 album, American Utopia, along with music from Talking Heads and Byrne’s solo career. "Dazzling, rapturous and jubilant," exclaims the New York Times of the show. "Astonishing," raves Hollywood Reporter. "A knockout celebration of music, dance and song. Pure bliss." Byrne performs on Jimmy Kimmel Live! from Brooklyn tonight and on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 19.

Yola was named among "the best things we saw" at Farm Aid 2019 by both Rolling Stone, noting "her powerhouse vocals," and Billboard, which reports of the festival's "breakthrough artist": "An imposing presence with a massive, gospel-fired voice, Yola held the midday crowd riveted with songs from her debut album Walk Through Fire." One such festival performance, of the song "It Ain't Easier," can be seen here. It has just been announced that she will perform at Holiday Cheer for FUV at the Beacon Theatre in NYC in December and at Chris Stapleton's benefit concert in Kentucky next April. Fittingly, Yola has been nominated as Live Act of the Year in the UK's Independent Festival Awards.

Devendra Banhart talks with Alison Mosshart (The Kills, The Dead Weather) on the latest episode of Talkhouse Podcast. "It's a great record," says the show of Banhart's new album, Ma, "a fantastic record." You can listen to Banhart and Mosshart's conversation about their latest projects, a shared love of skateboarding, and more here. The new Pitchfork review of Ma says: "Banhart steps fully into these songs with a vitality that recalls his beginnings. ... Puckish and tender, Banhart seems again delighted to be here, too."

The Guardian has published a number of lists of the Best Culture of the 21st Century (So Far). Several Nonesuch artists and recordings have made the lists, including works by Rokia Traoré, John Adams, Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, and more. Also on the lists are films for which Nonesuch released soundtracks by Jonny Greenwood, Clint Mansell, and more.

Devendra Banhart's new album, Ma, is out now. He has also released a new video for his Carole King-inspired album track, “Taking a Page,” filmed by The Bardos during his recent trip to Nepal; you can watch it here. This is "sublimely understated, border-blurring folk rock," the Los Angeles Times says of the album. "There is a truth and authenticity to the songs via their warmth and generosity," says MOJO . "These are vignettes of lived experiences. Groovy and moving, in all the right directions." "Banhart's singular world remains as intoxicating as ever on the earthly, analogue-sounding Ma," says Q. "It feels as if all of human life is here."