Dan Auerbach's song "Going Home," off his debut solo album, Keep It Hid, provides the musical setting for a new short documentary video released today from the United Nations that calls attention to the crisis of internally displaced people in Eastern Congo. Today's video release coincides with the visit of UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos to the Congo. Watch the video here.

The Associated Press has announced its Top Ten list of the best albums of 2009, and on it are Wilco's Wilco (the album) at No. 3 and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi at No. 9. Included as Honorable Mention is Dan Auerbach's solo debut, Keep It Hid, and Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali is "also one of the year's best."

Three Nonesuch albums have made the list of the Best Albums of 2009 from David Dye, host of NPR's World Cafe: Wilco's Wilco (the album) ("a masterpiece that felt both ambitious and lived-in"), Dan Auerbach's Keep It Hid, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi. Dye also picks "You and I," Jeff Tweedy's duet with Leslie Feist off Wilco (the album), among his choices of the year's best songs.

BlakRoc, the brainchild of The Black Keys and Damon Dash, releases on “Black Friday” (a.k.a. "Blak Friday"), November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, featuring music by The Black Keys with a star-studded line up of MCs including Mos Def, Q-Tip, RZA, Raekwon, Pharoahe Monch, Jim Jones, NOE, Nicole Wray, and Billy Danze. The Seattle Times calls it the "most interesting hip-hop approach" of the year.

Dan Auerbach brings his tour to New York City's Webster Hall tonight. Things kicked off last week in Columbus, Ohio, with what UWeekly calls "a very intimate show and one that you should be kicking yourself for if you missed it." The Boston Herald calls Monday's set at the Paradise in Boston an "exhilarating" show, at which "Auerbach opened the sonic floodgates."

The Black Keys were in New Orleans on Friday for a very rainy Voodoo Music Experience. The duo "rewarded the hearty souls who stood in the rain with a ferocious set," says the Times-Picayune. Creative Loafing concurs that "the Keys definitely heated it up for their hour-long set," calling it "the highlight of the day." Dan Auerbach begins a 14-day tour this Thursday.

Following a two-night set "stomping through songs from his fine solo debut, Keep It Hid" (New York Times) in Austin at Austin City Limits and an official ACL Aftershow, Dan Auerbach is set to begin a three-week North American tour with his band The Fast Five, beginning November 5 in Columbus, Ohio. Joining for the length of the tour are Justin Townes Earle and Jessica Lea Mayfield.

It was a music festival–filled fall weekend with Austin City Limits and San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass featuring a total of six Nonesuch artists: The Low Anthem, Sara Watkins, and Dan Auerbach in Austin; Emmylou Harris, Allen Toussaint, and Amadou & Mariam in San Francisco. And St. Louis welcomed Wilco to the Farm Aid benefit concert for a set Rolling Stone says "brought the crowd to its feet."

Thousands of music fans converge on Austin this weekend for the eighth Austin City Limits Music Festival. Three Nonesuch artists—The Low Anthem, Sara Watkins, and Dan Auerbach—will be among the more than 130 artists, spanning pop, country, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, indie rock, hip-hop, and gospel, to take the stage in Austin's Zilker Park over the coming three days.

Dan Auerbach and The Low Anthem each performed sets in Chicago last weekend, both at Lollapalooza and in the city's clubs, where, says Rolling Stone, "Auerbach slayed a lucky crowd with tunes from his solo debut, Keep It Hid." Paste reports that Dan's festival set was "top-notch"; the Chicago Tribune says he "unfurls grooves that are as thick as the beard on his face"; and Time Out says he proved he's "got a soulful, lived-in voice that speaks to his promise as one of the great songwriters of his generation."

By any measure, it would seem that The Black Keys helped turn the muddied fields of New Jersey's Liberty State Park into a memorable closing day for the 2009 All Points West festival. Rolling Stone says their "primal power" of "one of America’s most respected bands" served them well. Esquire says the band's set stood out from the rest of the pack, making everything "whole again," and gives a "Daily Endorsement" to drummer Pat Carney.

The Black Keys' singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach stopped by the studios of New York public radio station WFUV for an episode of Words & Music from Studio A to perform songs from his recent solo release, Keep It Hid, with his uncle James Quine, and discuss the project with the show's host, Russ Borris, who calls the album "a fine piece of work ... marked by warm production and some of the best vocals Auerbach has recorded to date."