Rokia Traoré, whose new album, Beautiful Africa will be released in April 2013 in Europea and Canada by Nonesuch Records, with a US release to follow, has unveiled the video for the album track "Mélancolie." The video, directed by Romain Carciofo, premiered on Slate Afrique and can now be seen here. Beautiful Africa is available for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store and includes an instant download of the title track. Traoré has already announced several European spring tour dates and summer festivals, including Roskilde and Glastonbury.

Nataly Dawn has announced a number of headlining US tour dates this spring featuring music from her just-released Nonesuch debut album, How I Knew Her. The three-week, 14-city tour kicks off with a performance at The Walnut Room in Denver, Colorado, on March 18, and includes two nights each in New York City and Chicago and stops in Minneapolis, Madison, Toronto, Philadelphia, Arlington, Charlottesville, Durham, Atlanta, Nashville, Fort Worth, and Austin. Dawn will be in Austin before the tour launch to perform at SXSW.

Lianne La Havas performed a sold-out show at Le Trianon in Paris this past Tuesday night that streamed live via Arte Live Web. You can now watch the complete concert here. La Havas's European tour continues through mid-March, at which point she makes her way to the North America for a stop at SXSW in Austin and an 18-city tour starting in Dallas. The tour includes shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Montreal, and more. 

Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter launch a North American tour together with a performance in Charlotte, North Carolina, tonight. These longtime friends will share the stage as an intimate duo, performing material spanning their vast catalogs as well as some of their favorite songs. This first leg of the tour includes an additonal stop in North Carolina and shows through the South. Following Colvin's residency at the Dakota in Minneapolis and a tour of Australia, the duo tour picks up again in April, making stops across the Pacific Northwest, into Canada, and down to the US Northeast.

Iron and Wine, the pen name of singer-songwriter Sam Beam, has announced a series of US tour dates this spring, performing at the BottleRock Festival in Napa, California, on May 11, followed by a run along the East Coast in support of the new album Ghost on Ghost, due out April 16 in the US on Nonesuch Records. Tickets are on sale this week. 

The line-up for the 2013 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival has been announced, and included among this year's performers are four artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Björk, Amadou & Mariam, Bombino, and Fatoumata Diawara. The four-day festival takes place in Manchester, Tennessee, and runs June 13–16. Tickets go on sale Saturday, February 23, at noon EST.

Lianne La Havas has released a two-part video for songs from her debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?: "Elusive," which premiered earlier today on Noisey.com, and "Gone," which premiere via Essence. Both videos were directed by Colin Solal Cardo of La Blogothèque. Watch them both here. Lianne La Havas, currently on tour in Europe, launches her US tour March 17 in Dallas.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell have sat down for a chat about their new collaborative album, Old Yellow Moon. In the video, the duo partners discuss the roots of the album, their first official collaboration together since Crowell joined Harris's Hot Band in 1975, and offer a few intimate acoustic takes on some album tracks. “Rodney and I have been talking about doing a project together probably almost since we met," Harris says in the video. "It seemed like it was inevitable that we would do it. But as the years went by, one day I just thought," she laughs: "It’s getting late.” Watch it here.

Devendra Banhart recently spoke with France’s arts and culture website PUREchannel about his forthcoming album, Mala, and performed intimate, solo acoustic takes of two songs off the album, “Golden Girls” and "Never Seen Such Good Things." You can watch the PUREchannel interview and two song performance videos here. Banhart is set to perform at KCRW's Official SXSW Day Showcase in Austin on March 13. 

Nonesuch Records returns to Powell Hall in St. Louis this weekend to record the St. Louis Symphony's performances of John Adams's City Noir, February 15 and 16. John Adams will be in attendance for the recording. The Saturday evening performance will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio, 90.7-KWMU, streaming at stlpublicradio.org. Nonesuch will be back in Powell Hall in October to record a new John Adams concerto written for saxophone. The concerto and City Noir will combined and released by Nonesuch Records at a future date.

Brad Mehldau launches a ten-day, seven-city European tour with fellow pianist and longtime friend Kevin Hays, featuring music from Modern Music, their 2011 collaborative album with composer Patrick Zimmerli, in Manchester, England, tonight. The tour includes stops in Vienna, Zagreb, Zurich, Birmingham, Paris, and Porto. In March, Mehldau is joined by drummer Mark Guiliana for a month-long tour of their duo project, Mehliana, then returns to the US for a run of duo dates with Chris Thile in April. 

Nataly Dawn makes her Nonesuch debut with today's release of her solo album How I Knew Her. She has also unveiled a video for the title track, which you can watch here. The album comprises 12 autobiographical, introspective songs by Dawn, one half of Pomplamoose, and was produced by her longtime partner Jack Conte. "While she retains a lot of the whimsy and charm of Pomplamoose," says NPR's All Things Considered, "the music here reveals a whole different side of Nataly Dawn that Pomplamoose fans might not have known was there ... It's funny, and it's challenging. It's poignant, spiritual." Listen to her recent performance on Portland's KINK FM here.