The Low Anthem, fresh off a multi-set stop at the Bonnaroo festival this weekend, are in New York City to celebrate the release of their Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, with a performance at the Bowery Ballroom tonight. The Observer Music Monthly gives the album four stars, exclaiming, "it soars, the title track especially"; Paste's Josh Jackson calls it "one of my favorite albums this year." The New York Times writes: "[T]he quieter the music gets ... the more its music inhabits its own otherworldly place, where ghosts and angels hover just out of view."

After four days, 70,000-plus music lovers, and scores of A-list performers, the Bonnaroo music and arts festival has come to a close. Among the festival's performers were no fewer than seven Nonesuch artists. The New York Times calls the Wilco show "one of Bonnaroo’s most extraordinary sets." The Wall Street Journal describes The Low Anthem's "fine new album" as "both clever and affecting" and its live set as "moving, folk-based Americana." Pop Matters calls it "one of the most pleasant surprises" of the day and the trio's vocals "absolutely phenomenal and as pure as can be." Spinner calls them "one of the true breakout bands at Bonnaroo this year."

Ry Cooder kicks off European tour with Nick Lowe in Ireland ... Bill Frisell Trio try a trifecta in Rochester, Louisville, Philly ... Youssou N'Dour does Q&As for film screenings in NYC ... eighth blackbird performs Reich's Pulizer Prize-winning Double Sextet at Ojai Festival ... Bonnaroo welcomes Amadou & Mariam, David Byrne, Toumani Diabaté with Béla Fleck, The Low Anthem, Allen Toussaint, Sara Watkins, and Wilco, who starts its summer tour ... and more ...

The Nonesuch artist invasion of Bonnaroo, the big four-day music and arts festival in Manchester, Tennessee, began last night with an opening-night performance by The Low Anthem, which performs again this afternoon. Also performing today are Toumani Diabaté with Béla Fleck at The Other Tent's all-day program of African music, culminating in an evening set by Amadou & Mariam. David Byrne closes out the day's performances on the Which Stage and leads the first-ever artist-curated stage. On Saturday, Allen Toussaint plays two stages; Sara Watkins plays with Fiction Family; and Wilco, one of SPIN's "must-hear" acts there, plays a two-hour set on the What Stage.

Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, the award-winning film that documents the creation of and response to N'Dour's 2004 Grammy-winning album Egypt, begins its theatrical run in New York tomorrow at the Paris Theatre and IFC Center in Manhattan, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The Senegalese superstar and the film's director, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, will make personal appearances at the three New York-area theaters on opening day and the following day, Saturday, taking questions from the audience about the film.

Nonesuch will release a new recording of the complete Mozart violin concertos by Grammy Award–winning Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica orchestra on July 21. Following their performance of the concertos at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart 2006, the New York Times praised Kremer's "ability to make a work, however familiar, entirely his own, dissimilar in most important details from the way other violinists play it, yet fully within both the spirit and letter of the score.” This two-disc set captures their performance of the five concertos at the Salzburg Festival two days later.

Oumou Sangare, the Malian singer/songwriter known as the "Songbird," has released Seya, her first international release in six years. Toronto's Globe and Mail says the album's title, meaning "joy," is certainly reflected in the music, calling it "modern Malian music at its finest: sophisticated, subtle, beautifully produced ... Its cross-rhythms and flowing, hypnotic instrumental lines underpin all she does, and all she does on Seya, whether crooning, chanting, chuckling or singing with majestic power, is excellent."

Amadou & Mariam performed for a frenzied, sold-out crowd last night at New York's Webster Hall. They also stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to perform "Africa" off their new album, Welcome to Mali, on last night's episode, with The Roots' Black Thought. Last Saturday, the couple performed for a sold-out crowd in Boston. Reports the Boston Globe: "[I]f Amadou and Mariam each shone individually, they practically glowed when they performed together." Previewing tomorrow's show outside DC, the Washington City Paper describes the new album as "wonderful" and says it's "Amadou’s rhythms that drive their songs forward, and his joyous-feeling choruses that make the tunes transcendent."

The Low Anthem's Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, is set for release tomorrow. The album's first track, "Charlie Darwin," opens this week's episode of NPR's All Songs Considered. "If you listen to just one song today," insists the show's host, Bob Boilen, "make it this opening track to the new CD by The Low Anthem. It all starts off with a sound that at times feels Gospel and then at the very same time feels agnostic. Those two ideas seem at odds with one another, but then the title of the record's called Oh My God, Charlie Darwin."

David Byrne will perform a very special free concert at Brooklyn, New York's Prospect Bark Bandhsell tonight as part of the Opening Night events of the  Celebrate Brooklyn! concert series. Byrne will offer music from his ongoing Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno tour, featuring material from his collaborations with Eno, including 1981’s groundbreaking My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. "One of the city's coolest summer concert series," says the Village Voice, "opens its 2009 season with a free show by one of the city's coolest art-rock deities, David Byrne."

Amadou & Mariam have made their way to NYC after playing a sold-out set at Boston's Paradise Rock Club on Saturday. While in New York to perform at Webster Hall tonight, the Malian couple will stop by the set of NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where they'll be joined by members of The Roots in performing a song off Welcome to Mali. The show airs tonight starting at 12:35 AM ET. The tour heads next to Philly, and then outside DC. The Washington Post Express calls the new album "the type of record that is so joyous and positive that it feels like it could bring together warring factions ... but it's really more of a sonic Evite to explore the diverse country in Northwest Africa."

Steve Reich is set to join famed German electronic-music pioneers Kraftwerk as the special guest in a sold-out show marking the Opening Night of the 2009 Manchester International Festival on July 2. The concert will feature the world premiere of Reich’s 2x5, led by the composer and performed by Bang on a Can. The Festival has teamed up with Boosey & Hawkes, Steve Reich's publisher, for a unique opportunity to win a pair of tickets to the sold-out event and accommodations through a contest on Twitter @SteveReich.