Nonesuch Records is happy to announce that the new album by The Magnetic Fields, Distortion, will be released on January 15, 2008. The band will perform a small
number of US tour dates in February and March. Specific details regarding venues and ticket pre-sales will be announced shortly.

The New Yorker says that Sérgio and Odair Assad's new album, Jardim Abandonado, includes works by Antônio Carlos Jobim ("exquisite miniatures of ardent desire and ineffable regret"), Milhaud, Debussy, Sérgio Assad, his daughter Clarice, and Adam Guettel, and the album's "pièce de résistance ... a transcription of 'Rhapsody in Blue.'" The Assads' arrangements "give all the pieces, whether popular or classical, an intimate sense of tonal richness and a new range of scintillating colors."

To coincide with the reissue of David Byrne's The Knee Plays—due out November 6—comes the launch of kneeplays.com. The site contains pages of never-before-released materials on the piece, including an essay by David Byrne on its origins as a collaboration with director Robert Wilson, sketches from the theatrical production, and a slideshow of stills from the premiere, as well as audio clips from the new CD. On the CD are the 13 tracks from the original score plus seven previously unavailable bonus tracks.

Laurie Anderson's 1982 album Big Science has been reissued in a remastered version available from Nonesuch Records, with new liner notes, bonus track, and video content. Pitchfork gives the album an 8.7.

Wilco is currently wrapping up work on a new studio album entitled Sky Blue Sky, which will be released on Nonesuch May 15. It is the first studio album since the group's 2004 Grammy Award–winning record, A ghost is born, and the first newly written and recorded material to feature the now firmly established band line-up of Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche, Mike Jorgensen, Nels Cline, and Pat Sansone.

Listen to songs from a few of the new releases from the last couple of weeks.