The Magnetic Fields’ Realism will be released by Nonesuch on January 26, 2010. The follow-up to 2008’s Distortion finds Stephin Merritt drawing inspiration from late 1960s / early 70s orchestral and psychedelic folk for an all-acoustic set. A Nonesuch Store exclusive, now available for pre-order, includes the album on vinyl or CD plus a limited-edition, silk-screened poster signed by Merritt. The band will tour the US in support of the album beginning February 4.

Nonesuch Records is set to release the label debut of North Carolina–based string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops on February 23. Produced by Joe Henry, Genuine Negro Jig features string band interpretations of Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style” and Tom Waits’ “Trampled Rose,” as well as a pair of original compositions, alongside a number of traditional tracks. NPR calls the band “the hottest thing to hit the old-time music community in decades.”

Nonesuch Records is set to release Realism, the new album from The Magnetic Fields and the band's follow-up to the 2008 album, Distortion, on January 26, 2010. More information will be forthcoming very shortly, but in the mean time, we've got the cover at left and a list of the album's 13 track titles.

As Wilco’s European tour continues, the vinyl reissue of the band's catalog is now complete with today's release of Being There, the band's second studio album. Upon its original release, The Independent's Andy Gill compared it favorably to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street. Today, Gill praises Wilco's recent London show, which closed with a special take of a song off Being There, "a magical, moving conclusion to one of the best gigs of the year, by one of the best bands in the world."

Tony Allen—best known for his work as drummer and musical director for Fela Kuti—will make his Nonesuch debut with the release of Secret Agent on April 13. Following the album's European release on World Circuit earlier this year, The Guardian proclaimed, “There is no question that Tony Allen is a genius, one of the greatest percussionists in the history of popular music,” while Observer Music Monthly said, “If you’re wondering why Afrobeat is hip, start here.”

Nonesuch Records will release its first album from Natalie Merchant in early 2010. The record is her first release since 2003's The House Carpenter's Daughter. Throughout her career, Merchant has had tremendous popular and critical success. Vogue has called her "one of the most successful and enduring alternative artists to emerge from the eighties—intact and uncompromised."

Wilco's 1995 debut, A.M., is now out again on vinyl. The band is set to begin a three-week tour this Thursday in the Main Lounge of the University of Iowa's Memorial Union. This afternoon at 3 PM CT, the band stops by the studios of radio station WXRT in their hometown of Chicago to talk about the tour and play guest DJ. The North American tour culminates with two shows in Chicago on October 18 and 19; Wilco heads to Europe in early November.

Alarm Will Sound makes its full-length Nonesuch debut today with the release of a/rhythmia, on which the group performs 14 pieces from composers spanning six centuries, all of which explore the concept of “arrhythmia”: “want of rhythm or regularity, specifically of the pulse.” The resulting work upends order and expectation, often taking ideas akin to minimalism and refracting them through a fun-house mirror.

When Joshua Redman's MoodSwing was originally released, back in 1994, it was Redman's first to feature both his own band—pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Brian Blade—and all original tunes. Now, as those collaborations continue to flourish, MoodSwing returns in a new Nonesuch vinyl reissue. "Redman finds ingenious ways of creating a mode of acoustic jazz that is both entertaining and enlightening," Entertainment Weekly wrote upon the album's initial release. "MoodSwing plays like an artistic journey."

"You Never Know," off Wilco's latest release, Wilco (the album), has made its way to No. 1 on the Triple-A radio chart, a career first for the band. Wilco first appeared on the chart with "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" off 1996's Being There. That album, along with the band's two other '90s releases, Summerteeth and A.M., are now being reissued on vinyl, for the first time, by Nonesuch.

Nonesuch will release a/rhythmia, the new album from Alarm Will Sound, the 20-member group described by the New York Times as “one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene," on September 15; it is available to pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store. On the album are works by Michael Gordon, Conlon Nancarrow, Benedict Mason, György Ligeti, and Autechre, among others, that challenge in playful and often dazzling ways conventional notions of rhythm and pulse.

Musicologist-conductor-pianist Joshua Rifkin’s The Baroque Beatles Book, featuring Baroque-era arrangements of the Fab Four’s Top 40 hits, was among the earliest releases on the then year-old Nonesuch label in 1965 and remained a cult favorite in the catalog over the decades. Now, for the first time, it has been reissued on CD, and, all these years later, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "It’s still a lot of fun ... Give it a listen."