In today's Boston Globe, correspondent Siddhartha Mitter previews tonight's Caetano Veloso show at the Orpheum Theare. In Caetano's current artistic output, Mitter finds that the 65-year-old singer "still shows the restlessness that first earned him fame in the late 1960s." Yet for all the sonic surprises on the new, rock-influenced album Cê, "the man's voice is as richly seductive and thoughtful as ever, and the lyrics ... offer intellectual and cultural queries presented in the Veloso manner, suffused with yearning and ambiguous eroticism."

Last week, Laurie Anderson visited Melbourne, Australia, to present her latest work, Homeland, at the annual Melbourne International Arts Festival. In a report from the festival, the Guardian praised the piece from its "breathtaking" opening moments—"a fitting introduction to her finest show in more than a decade."

All Songs Considered has announced the next show in NPR's Live Concert Series: bluegrass masters Nickel Creek—Sean Watkins, Sara Watkins, and Chris Thile—live from their farewell tour, November 2, at the 9:30 Club in Washington. Boilen calls Thile, whose band Punch Brothers recently signed to Nonesuch, "one of the most amazing mandolin players I've ever heard."

Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take) has earned "wild applause"—the highest rating—from the San Francisco Chronicle. The review  praises its predecessor, the Grammy-winning Egypt, as "a masterpiece in a career filled with them," then names the new album "an immediate Grammy contender in its own right." "Crackling with rhythm and joy," says the Chronicle, "this is world music that truly can be heard, loved and understood around the globe."

Youssou N'Dour debuted on the top of the iTunes UK World Music Album Chart today with the release of his new album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). The British press has been singing the record's praises, with the Financial Times, BBC Music magazine, and the Guardian all giving it highest marks. Fans in the UK had a chance to hear tracks from Rokku Mi Rokka all day on BBC 6, which made it the featured Album of the Day.

The Los Angeles Times "Gold Derby" blog is already predicting that Sweeney Todd will win the Oscar for best picture. "Sondheim's musical score is a masterpiece," says the site. "Viewers can't help but get swept up in Sweeney's lush melodies and raging drama." The blog says of the Stephen Sondheim play on which it is based: "Arguably, it's the greatest in Broadway history."

In today's Boston Herald, Caetano Veloso lays out a complex path of inspirations for his new record, Cê, from Brazilian singers of the 1930s all the way up to the Arctic Monkeys and Animal Collective today, with stops at vintage-era Talking Heads along the way. A still more personal influence on the new sound is Caetano's son Moreno, who produced the album. Caetano performs at the Orpheum in Boston this Friday.

While reports continue to pour in about the show-stealing set by Kronos Quartet and Tom Waits at last weekend's Bridge School Benefit, the group sent in a special backstage photo from the event. Here they are with Tyler, the Bridge School student whose artwork lined the walls of their dressing room to provide some inspiration before the show.

Kronos Quartet and Tom Waits performed last Saturday and Sunday for 40,000+ people at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, as part of the 21st annual Bridge School Benefit organized by Neil Young and his wife, Pegi. Reports all point to the Waits/Kronos set as "the day's most thrilling" (San Jose Mercury News) and "the undisputed highlight of the concert" (Rolling Stone).

On Tuesday, November 6, the Austin Film Society will present a screening of Youssou N'Dour: Return to Gorée. The 2006 documentary, directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud, follows N'Dour and his band through Europe to a powerful performance at Gorée, the island off the coast of Senegal's capital that, for centuries, served as the final departure point for newly enslaved Africans. The screening is part of the Film Society's monthlong series Torn from the Motherland: Films from the African Diaspora, designed "to appreciate Pan-Africanist creativity under the cold realities of slavery, imperialism, colonization and neo-colonialism." 

Richard Goode begins his artist residency as Associate Artist at London's Southbank Centre for the 2007-08 season in a November 7 concert with Dawn Upshaw. On the program is Schoenberg's Book of the Hanging Gardens; Berg's Piano Sonata, Op. 1; and songs by Debussy and Wolf. Goode describes working with Dawn as "one of the purest pleasures of my musical life." The two collaborated, notably, on a Nonesuch recording of Goethe Lieder in 1994.

Two lucky Pat Metheny fans will soon find themselves the owners of a brand-new Polk Audio iSonic home-entertainment system. To celebrate the upcoming release of his new record, Day Trip, with Christian McBride on bass and drummer Antonio Sanchez, patmetheny.com announced a contest with the two Polk consoles as the grand prize and signed copies of the record for 50 runner-up winners. Everyone who pre-orders Day Trip from the site is automatically entered to win.