Nonesuch Records labelmates mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau embark on a nine-city duo tour, beginning at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom tonight and includes stops in Durham, College Park, Great Barrington, Boston, Knoxville, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Austin. Their repertoire includes classical transcriptions, pop covers, and original songs. 

Iron and Wine makes its Nonesuch Records debut with the release of Ghost on Ghost next week. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it. The album is streaming in full all this week as an NPR First Listen. "Beam now presides over arrangements springy and three-dimensional enough to accommodate a horn section—and yet he still finds a way to wrap his agreeably soft voice around thematically weighty material," writes NPR's Stephen Thompson. "Beam still lets his songs and sound morph and evolve; more than ever, he's a songwriter versatile enough to pack huge ideas into simple arrangements and vice versa."

Rokia Traoré’s new album, Beautiful Africa, following last week's release in France, is out this week in the UK, the rest of Europe, and Canada, with the US release to follow at a later date. The album has been met with great critical acclaim, earning perfect five-star reviews from the Guardian, which calls her "Africa's most inventive singer-songwriter," Observer, Daily Telegraph, and Financial Times. Uncut calls it "a career highpoint." Traoré recorded an intimate version of the album track "Ka Moun Kè" in the halls of le Trianon in Paris; watch it here, where you can also watch her recent appearance on Radio France's Vinyl Radio.

Nomad, Bombino's Dan Auerbach-produced Nonesuch debut album released to critical acclaim earlier this week, has received a rave review from the Los Angeles Times. "Bombino and his band have released a killer document not only for fans of North African guitar music," writes Times critic Randall Roberts; "anyone who has ever appreciated a master player make magic on a Fender ... will find comfort in Bombino’s music." On Nomad, "simple wonders are celebrated with meandering joy."

Bombino's new album, Nomad, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, which calls it "a landmark in African rock music." Reviewer Banning Eyre says producer Dan Auerbach "has done nothing to dilute Bombino's folksy, organic songs. Instead, he's given them sonic heft rarely heard on African guitar recordings and added a few tasteful Nashville touches, like lap steel guitar." Eyre concludes: "This is a seductive, friendly album. It doesn't pander with gimmicks or English lyrics, but it manages to bring a distant, Islamic culture unexpectedly close through the universal language of rock and roll."

Jeremy Denk has written a personal history for The New Yorker titled "Every Good Boy Does Fine: A life in piano lessons." In the article, his second contribution to the magazine, Denk offers insight on the relationship between music students and teachers by recounting a few such relationships in his own life. The New York Times, reviewing Denk's solo recital at Carnegie Hall last week, says his “colossal interpretations conveyed the sense of composers grappling with the ineffable, inventing new vocabulary to express the inexpressible." Following his recent solo debut at Boston's Jordan Hall, the Boston Globe exclaimed: “Denk gave a revelatory performance ... It would be foolish to understate how remarkably talented he is.” 

Nataly Dawn, who is currently touring the US, recently appeared on WNYC's Soundcheck to perform a few songs from her new album, How I Knew Her, and talk with host John Schaefer. You can listen to the episode here. The latest video shot at the recording sessions for How I Knew Her at Prairie Sun Studios, for "Why Did You Marry," is now available to watch here as well, via Dawn's YouTube channel. 

Tuareg guitarist, singer, and songwriter Omara “Bombino” Moctar today releases his Nonesuch debut album, Nomad, produced by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. "Bombino’s playing is full of fast, stuttery, rhythmic hammering, coiling lines inside lines," says the New York Times. "But it also comes out in soft strums and battering single-note attacks, and its tone and phrasing have a flexible identity. In his playing, besides the sound of the pioneering Tuareg band Tinariwen, you might be reminded of Ali Farka Touré, Carlos Santana, Mark Knopfler, Jerry Garcia electric, Jerry Garcia acoustic. Bombino is never just one thing." Watch a short video about the album here.

The new musical of Here Lies Love, which explores the life of former Filipino First Lady Imelda Marcos, with concept and lyrics by David Byrne and music by Byrne and Fatboy Slim, receives its world premiere at the Public Theater in New York City tonight. The production, directed by Alex Timbers, will run through May 19. In 2010, Nonesuch Records released a double-disc recording of the song cycle of Here Lies Love, featuring Tori Amos, Steve Earle, Cyndi Lauper, Natalie Merchant, Florence Welch, Santigold, and St. Vincent; the Boston Globe calls it a "superb ... sumptuous double album."

Björk is set to bring her live Biophilia show back to North America this spring and summer. The dates include three shows outside San Francisco and two at the Hollywood Palladium where the venues have been set to her original Biophilia specifications as audio-visual shows in an intimate, in-the-round setting. In addition to her Biophilia performances Björk will also appear at the Hollywood Bowl and at Echo Beach in Toronto, along with three festival appearances: Pitchfork Festival, Bonnaroo, and the RBC Bluesfest in Ottawa. The Biophilia Education Program for students will also come to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Carolina Chocolate Drops, whom Paul Krugman recently featured briefly in his New York Times Friday Night Music column, launch a months-long spring tour of the United States with a performance at the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville, Virginia, tonight. The extensive, nationwide tour includes shows in New York, Boston, Charlotte, San Francisco, Austin, Chicago, and more, as well as sets at festival like DelFest and ROMP.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell were guests on today's episode of NPR's Fresh Air, talking with host Terry Gross about their long friendship and their new album, Old Yellow Moon. "Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell are such good solo singers," says Gross, "it's wonderful to hear them together, duetting on the new album Old Yellow Moon." Reviewing last night's show at the Beacon Theatre, the New York Times says they "reminisced, harmonized, sketched their kind of country canon and extended it to reflect on the present." Harris and Crowell "reclaimed the close harmonies they had in the 1970s, and their band was impeccable."