Malian singer Oumou Sangare concluded her North American tour this weekend with shows in Brooklyn and Maine. "Regal, righteous and funky," exclaims New York Times music critic Jon Pareles, "the Malian singer and songwriter Oumou Sangare commanded the stage of Celebrate Brooklyn! on Friday night at the Prospect Park Bandshell." Through her music and lyrics, this longtime champion of women's rights took on "the traditional West African singer’s role as community conscience while delivering her messages with a modern kick."

Björk unveils another piece of Biophilia with a look inside the Ultimate Edition of the forthcoming album. Presented in a lacquered and silkscreened oak hinged-lid case, the Biophilia Ultimate Edition consists of the Biophilia Manual along with 10 chrome-plated tuning forks, silkscreened on one face in 10 different colors, stamped at the back, with each fork adjusted to the tone of a Biophilia track, covering a complete octave in a non-conventional scale. It will be made to order and fabricated only once. Orders must be collected before August 12. Look inside the Ultimate Edition here.

Sara Watkins will join Garrison Keillor and the cast of public radio's A Prairie Home Companion on another cross-country tour that will take them from Alaska to Alabama this August and September on their second-annual Summer Love Tour. The concert tours will consist of "evenings of passionate duets, hot jazz, Catchup, English Majors and Poesy" and such favorite Prairie Home Companion elements as Guy Noir Private Eye, the Cowboys Dusty and Lefty, and all the latest News from Lake Wobegon.

Newport music festival season gets under way this weekend, when the Newport Folk Festival returns, featuring several Nonesuch artists: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Emmylou Harris, Wanda Jackson, and Chris Thile & Michael Daves, plus Sara Watkins with the Decemberists and a special benefit performance by The Low Anthem. James Farm will play the following weekend's Newport Jazz Festival. NPR Music will be broadcasting and webcasting full concerts throughout each event.

Inspired by a news headline about the Wall Street bailout, Ry Cooder began work on his forthcoming album Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down with the track “No Banker Left Behind,” an ode to the corrupt few spared from the financial crisis while most were left to fend for themselves. The songs on the album express sentiments or critiques often voiced only in private, among family or ideological allies. Here, Cooder discusses the inspiration behind these songs.

Chris Thile and Michael Daves are set to tour the UK and Ireland in September in support of their debut album, Sleep with One Eye Open. The tour begins in London on September 13 and includes concerts in Dublin, Cork, Liverpool, and Sheffield. Thile will also join Brad Mehldau in a special concert at London’s Wigmore Hall on September 16, where they will perform as a duo. Before then, Thile and Daves have a few duo performances in the States, starting with this Sunday's performance at the Newport Folk Festival.

Celebrations of Steve Reich's 75th year continue with The Reich Effect, a five-day festival presented by the Cork Opera House in Cork City, Ireland, starting today. The composer will participate in a number of events at the festival, which also features performances of more than a dozen of his works, including the Irish premiere of his WTC 9/11, performed by Kronos Quartet. Reich's influence "on contemporary music is layered into almost every genre," says the Irish Times. "His minimalist innovations have certainly gone far beyond the confines of classical composition."

Björk continues to unveil Biophilia with today’s premiere of the music video for the song "Crystalline" from groundbreaking director and longtime Björk collaborator Michel Gondry. Watch it here. Also available today in the Nonesuch Store is the first of four 12" vinyl releases, all part of The Crystalline Series featuring variations on music from Biophilia by Serban Ghenea, Matthew Herbert, and Omar Souleyman. All five physical versions of the Biophilia album are available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store, including the custom-made Biophilia Manual and Ultimate Edition.

The video for the title track to Philip Selway's forthcoming EP Running Blind, directed by Rupert Style and featuring a live session of the song, has received its Pitchfork premiere. The video premiered on NME in the UK, where the EP was just released on Bella Union. It will be included with the digital EP out on Nonesuch in August. Watch the video here.

Randy Newman kicked off his two-week tour of Australia Friday night in a one-night-only performance with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane. "Everyone is swept along by Newman's charm," reports The Australian. "This was live performance at its best, spontaneous and heartfelt, with one of America's greatest songwriters at the helm." The Brisbane Times gives this "night of perfect tone" five stars. The Age says: "For more than 40 years, his hallowed name has comprised a two-word rebuttal to the clueless cliche that 'Americans don't get irony."

Björk is the subject of the cover story in Billboard magazine's Fall Preview edition, detailing the "24 most-anticipated releases" of the season. Björk discusses her latest project, Biophilia, and its many facets: the studio album, the app, the live show, and the forthcoming Michel Gondry-directed video. "At the center of it all," says Billboard, "is Björk, whose cavernous, emotionally stirring follow-up to 2007's Volta is her most immediate album since 2001's Vespertine."

Oumou Sangare launches a rare North American tour this weekend with a free set at the Festival International Nuits d'Afrique in Montreal tonight before heading to the States and the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, New York. The tour includes additional stops in Boston, Manhattan, Maine, and Brooklyn. The Boston Globe says: "A visit from this charismatic queen of Malian music and fierce combatant for women’s rights is always an occasion, not least because, as seen on her most recent album, Seya, she’s at the summit of her art."