Wilco has made the NPR listeners' list, both for Best Album, Wilco (the album), and twice again for Best Song with "Wilco (the song)" and "One Wing." "One thing was clear," says Bob Boilen, host of NPR's All Songs Considered, "that 2009 has been one of the strongest years for new music in recent memory." Fresh on the heels of their successful summer tour of the US, the band has announced a number of new dates in the country for this October.

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.

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."

Shawn Colvin's Live album was released late last month on Nonesuch, and, says MusicOMH in its four-star review, "a live album is long overdue ... [T]his career-spanning selection of songs could easily be a wish list for any fan," he states, "but also serves as fine introduction to a singer-songwriter who is frequently mentioned in the same breath as James Taylor, Lucinda Williams and Joni Mitchell." Shawn is set to begin a run of solo dates this week, opening for Jackson Browne on Thursday. She spoke with Popdose, which calls her "one of the leading lights of 'Americana' music and perhaps the most important singer/songwriter—male or female—of the last 20 years."

Malian songstress Oumou Sangare’s Sunday performance at the Central Park SummerStage concert series in New York City is the subject of a review in Tuesday’s New York Times, in which critic Ben Ratliff writes that “the ancient lived with the new” in her set, which “started at a run and yanked you in.”

Jeff Tweedy is the subject of a feature article in this Sunday's New York Times, about the making of the new record, the band's story, life as a family man, and the much healthier, more content place in which he now finds himself. The Times calls Wilco (the album) a "splendid" record from "one of alternative rock’s most consistent and respected bands." It's a sign that, "unlike the rock trope that only chronic agony produces important music, the absence of mayhem has been good for the work." To that end, the record serves as "a kind of compilation of a band at the height of its powers." Jeff also answers a very eclectic set of questions in the Times Magazine.

Steve Reich's latest creation, 2x5, premieres tonight on a double bill with pioneering electronic music group Kraftwerk, in a sold-out concert to open the Manchester International Festival. Bang On A Can performs the piece with the composer in the sound booth. The piece builds on the framework of Reich's 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning work, Double Sextet. The Star-Ledger writes of a recent performance of Double Sextet that "both the piece itself and the sense of lifetime achievement came through in full glory." The Guardian, in a feature on the composer, writes, "Reich has been composing for more than 40 years. In that time, he has seen the music he is most closely associated with ... seemingly emerge from nowhere to become one of the dominant musical forms of the age."

k.d. lang has been selected as a "Gay Icon" in the new exhibit at London's National Portrait Gallery opening today. For Gay Icons, ten notable gay and lesbian figures were asked to select their "icons," people who influenced or inspired them. The image of k.d.—a 1992 print by photographer Jill Furmanovsky—was chosen by broadcaster Sandi Toksvig, who chaired the selection committee that included the likes of Elton John, Billie Jean King, and Ian McKellen. The Times (UK) gives the exhibit four stars, calling it "colourful, intimate and moving. It ranges widely and touches on many lives, famed and unknown."

Bill Frisell is the subject of an extensive interview with All About Jazz titled "The Quiet Genius." "If there is a given within the music of guitarist Bill Frisell," says the site, "it's the honest approach in every note he composes and plays. There are no compromises." The article examines the "magical world of creativity" Frisell creates, calling him "one of today's most original and innovative composers" and recognizing "his compositional genius as a painter of sound."

Any way it's told, the story of Nonesuch Records, through its now 45-year history, is and has always been about the music. FLYP, a new online multimedia magazine, has dedicated its latest issue in its entirety to telling that story, through 50-plus pages, more than a dozen articles, and scores of images, video interviews and performances, streaming audio, personal journal excerpts, an interactive name-that-tune, and a jukebox of songs to select and play from the Nonesuch catalog.

Shawn Colvin's new Live album is due out next week. To celebrate, Nonesuch has teamed up with Martin Guitar to offer a brand-new X-Series guitar, signed by Shawn; three runners-up will win a free, signed copy of the CD. All orders of the album in the Nonesuch Store placed by July 21 (including previously placed orders) are registered to win and include, along with the album MP3s, the exclusive bonus download "Another Long One." The Detroit Free Press gives the album four stars, calling it "an intimate, career-spanning solo recording."

It is with great regret that Flaco Jiménez has had to pull out of Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe’s forthcoming European tour on doctor's orders. Due to physical limitations and severe pain caused by herniated discs in his lower back, the Grammy-winning accordionist is unable to travel or perform for the foreseeable future. He is currently undergoing treatment in San Antonio, Texas. The 19-date tour begins on June 11 in Dublin.