When Stephin Merritt was in Chicago last month during the Magnetic Fields' 50 Song Memoir tour stops at Thalia Hall, he visited the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago for a public conversation about the new album with Pitchfork's Marc Hogan for the In Sight Out arts and culture series. You can hear the conversation here. The Magnetic Fields perform all 50 songs from the new album at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona in June and on tour in the UK and Ireland in late August.

Fleet Foxes, which releases its highly anticipated third album, Crack-Up, June 16 on Nonesuch, performs its first US concerts in six years with four special shows at select intimate theaters in the Pacific Northwest this week, in Missoula, Spokane, Portland, and Seattle. The band leads a four-night run at the Sydney Opera House, May 26–29, and tours across Europe and the US through the end of the year.

Offa Rex, the new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, releases its debut album, The Queen of Hearts, on Nonesuch on July 14. Here, the artists speak with writer Michael Hill about the project and how it came to be.

Fleet Foxes have unveiled the music video for "Fool's Errand," the second track released from their forthcoming album, Crack-Up, due June 16. The video was directed by Sean Pecknold with art direction by Adi Goodrich and produced by Society. You can watch it here and download the track with album pre-orders. Fleet Foxes begin an extensive international tour later this month.

Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers' Grammy Award–winning 1992 album, At the Ryman, recorded live over three nights at the historic Nashville venue, has been remastered and is now available on vinyl for the first time. It features the legendary singer and her acoustic backing band performing songs by Bill Monroe, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, Stephen Foster, Nanci Griffith, and others. The New York Times declared at the time: "This record is her finest moment."

Rhiannon Giddens was on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross today. She discusses her new album, Freedom Highway, and performs "At the Purchaser's Option" and "Julie," two of nine original songs she wrote or co-wrote for the album, which also includes a traditional tune and two civil rights–era songs. You can hear the episode here. Giddens performs at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in NYC and World Café Live in Philadelphia this weekend; the tour resumes in June and continues through the summer.

Conor Oberst was the musical guest on The Late Late Show with James Corden. He performed "Too Late to Fixate," from his new album, Salutations, joined by The Felice Brothers as his backing band, along with the legendary drummer Jim Keltner, all of whom performed on the album. Watch it here. Oberst, backed by The Felice Brothers, begins the next leg of his US tour in California, with shows in Grass Valley, Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Diego, this week. The tour continues through the summer with headlining shows and festival sets, from Austin to Omaha, Birmingham to Brooklyn, Boston, DC, and more.

Congratulations to Rhiannon Giddens, whose new album, Freedom Highway, has been nominated for Album of the Year, top honors at the 2017 Americana Honors & Awards, announced earlier today by the Americana Music Association. The Americana Honors & Awards show returns to the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on September 13, 2017.

When Record Store Day took place last month, among the special items were The Allen Toussaint Collection, a compilation of tracks from his first four albums in its first-ever vinyl release; Emmylou Harris's Queen of the Silver Dollar: The Studio Albums, 1975–79, her first five studio albums on vinyl and a bonus 45 RPM; and Randy Newman's Lonely at the Top: Studio Albums, 1968–77, his first five studio albums on vinyl and a bonus 45 RPM. A limited number of all three vinyl releases is now available in the Nonesuch Store.

The Brad Mehldau Trio return to Europe and the UK for a mostly sold-out two week tour, beginning at the beautiful, new Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg tonight. The tour continues with shows in Sweden and Norway, then heads to the UK for dates in Leeds, Manchester, Norwich, London, and Bath, and culminates back in Germany with a set at JazzFest Bonn on May 22.

On July 14, Nonesuch will release The Queen of Hearts, the debut album from Offa Rex, a new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists. Produced and recorded by Tucker Martine and Colin Meloy at Martine's studio in Portland, OR, and mostly arranged by Chaney, The Queen of Hearts draws largely on traditional English-Irish-Scottish repertoire to create a transatlantic musical conversation that flirts with psychedelia and folk rock while maintaining its own inimitable identity. Nonesuch Store pre-orders include an exclusive print and an instant download of the title track, a performance video of which can be seen here.

Celebrate Brooklyn!—one of New York City's longest running, free, outdoor performing arts festivals—has announced the complete line-up for this summer's concert series in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Among the featured performers this year are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Lake Street Dive, Conor Oberst, Fleet Foxes, Sam Amidon, Amadou & Mariam, and Youssou N'Dour.