Oumou Sangare was among the performers at this past weekend's WOMAD in the UK. BBC Radio 3 has coverage from the festival, and the Daily Telegraph says Oumou's set found her "wreathing her airy voice around her band’s funky harp-based rhythms," building "to a rapturous finale." Pitchfork gives her new album, Seya, an 8.1, praising "its seamless mix of old and new sounds." Dusted says the album's title, which means "Joy," is an apt one, as that's "a sentiment that rings true every time the songbird of Wassoulou opens her mouth."

Rokia Traoré was "one of the biggest draws" at this past weekend's WOMAD festival in Wiltshire, England, says the BBC. From backstage, BBC spoke with the Malian-born singer-songwriter, described as "one of Africa's most innovative and acclaimed musicians." The Independent gives four star's to the festival's first night, at which "the day's star-making performance comes from Mali's Rokia Traoré ... It is when she dances, hips swinging half-way to Somerset, and straps on an electric guitar to lead her band in hard, dramatic rock, that she becomes potent with pride."

Rokia Traoré, Oumou Sangare, Youssou N'Dour take the WOMAD UK stage ... Youssou plays the Nice Jazz Fest too, as the film about his album Egypt opens in Montreal ... Amadou & Mariam close Coldplay tour, feature on CNN ... David Byrne's Italian tour continues at Locus Fest ... Bill Frisell concludes European tour with McCoy Tyner Quintet ... The Low Anthem plays Philly's XPoNential Music Fest ... Punch Brothers play up in Maine ... Joshua Redman Trio makes music at Mendocino Fest ... Steve Reich participates in Bang on a Can Music Fest at MASS MoCA... Dawn Upshaw performs Golijov and more at Aspen Music Fest ... and much more ...

Wilco brought its US tour to a close last night, headlining the 10,000 Lakes Festival's Thursday run, and begins its European tour at Oslo's Oya Festival on August 13. NPR's Fresh Air reviews the band's recent Nonesuch release, Wilco (the album), describing it as an album about an acceptance that allows one to feel "at once humbled and emboldened ... Acceptance, but not complacency. Jeff Tweedy is suggesting how you can make stability sound like a tough artistic challenge and a grand adventure."
 

Amadou & Mariam bring their US tour with Coldplay to a close tonight in St. Louis. Welcome to Mali, the couple's latest release, comes in at number six on SPIN's list of The 20 Best Albums of 2009 ... So Far. After tonight's final tour performance, the music keeps playing, as CNN's African Voices, airing Saturday, takes a closer look at the husband-and-wife musical team. With their "positive and mesmeric vocals and [Amadou] Bagayoko's guitar playing," says CNN, "the duo have been feted by musicians across the world." Learn why by watching this weekend.

Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, the film documenting the making of Youssou's Grammy-winning album Egypt, opens in Canada today. It had its North American premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and is now returning to the country for a theatrical run, with the first stop in Montreal. Fader spoke with Youssou and calls the film "an intimate portrait of the international superstar, one of the most compelling and important figures in the huge slice of culture we call world music."

Christina Courtin plays the second of two shows in California this week in a set at San Francisco's Café du Nord tonight. She performed at Largo at the Coronet in LA on Tuesday, a set the Los Angeles Times dubbed "refreshingly un-ethereal." The paper's music blog explains, saying Christina "offered one of the best correctives to the ever more ubiquitous images of wispy, inscrutable hipstresses with a set of completely endearing yet really sturdy and inventive folk-pop."

Allen Toussaint recently rounded out some concert dates in Europe with a set at the Jazz Cafe in London this past Sunday. He and his recent Nonesuch debut album, The Bright Mississippi, are the focus of an encore broadcast of Words & Music from Studio-A, from New York NPR member station WFUV. "There is no separating Allen Toussaint from New Orleans or the Crescent City from his music," says WFUV's Claudia Marshall her introduction to the episode, "and on his latest album, Allen looks even further into his hometown history, paying tribute to the forefathers of jazz."

Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble are teaming up with the LA Phil and the LA Master Chorale to present an all-Glass program tonight at the Hollywood Bowl, including "Spaceship," from Einstein on the Beach, described by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the most important and groundbreaking American operas in history," and a screening of the film Koyaanisqatsi, set to a new arrangement of Glass's score for the ensemble and orchestra. The Times says: "Glass's film music has helped make him perhaps the best-known classical composer of the last half-century." LA Weekly writes: "His progressions tend to be brilliantly subtle, forming, like gradated layers of color on canvas, some amazing aural paintings."

Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy is front and center on the cover of SPIN magazine's August issue, out on newsstands this week. The issue's cover story aims to answer the question: "So why are they now on top of the world?" Says SPIN: "Since forming in 1995, Wilco have slowly risen to become the greatest small-scale success story in American rock, following the sounds they like wherever they go while deepening and expanding their audience." The magazine names the band's latest release, Wilco (the album), among the year's best so far. Why? It's "the rare rock album about acceptance. And it's fantastic."

Kronos Quartet's performance in Brooklyn's Prospect Park last Thursday offered the sort of program for which the group earned once more the label "groundbreaking" in the New York Times review. The program featured works from Kronos's latest album, Floodplain, to which the Toronto Star gives a perfect four stars. "The Kronos Quartet never disappoints," exclaims the Star, "but on their latest disc they are even better than ever ... There isn't a single musical moment left wanting." The Arkansas Democrat-Gazzette gives it an A-, recommending in particular "the remarkable" album closer by Serbian-born composer Aleksandra Vrebalov.

Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica's recording of the complete Mozart violin concertos is out in a two-disc set on Nonesuch today. The Scotsman says "there's magic" on this recording from the "brilliant violinist" and gives it a perfect five stars. "This double album is truly sensational," exclaims the review ... There isn't a single moment where the interest pales, or the energy saps, or Kremer fails to surprise us." New Statesman says Kremer "captures the restlessness of the young Mozart," while the Kremerata "plays with tight ensemble and gleamingly honed tone." The double-disc set is currently the CD of the Week on the UK's Classic FM Morning Show.