k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang brought their UK tour to a close with a performance at Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow, Scotland, last night. The tour included two shows at London's Royal Festival Hall, to which the Guardian gives four stars. "lang is a beaming and ebullient figure tonight," says the Guardian. "k.d. lang's mojo has clearly been firmly relocated." The Evening Standard says "she's discovered how to have a ball, without sacrificing the passion that underpins her work ... How could anyone not fall a little in love?"

Ben Folds continues his Lonely Avenue tour of Asia in Japan ... Amadou & Mariam are in NYC ... Laurie Anderson performs Delusion in Spain and Portugal ... Shawn Colvin plays in Virginia and Pennsylvania ... Emmylou Harris's European tour heads to Amsterdam ... k.d. lang continues UK tour in London, Nottingham ... Kronos Quartet performs A Chinese Home close to home in San Francisco ... The Low Anthem launches US tour ... Jessica Lea Mayfield concludes her European tour in Amsterdam ... Pat Metheny talks music and science in NYC ... Allen Toussaint plays in Oregon ... and more ...

Chris Thile and Michael Daves have just been added to the line-up of the 2011 Newport Folk Festival, taking place July 30 and 31 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island. They join three fellow Nonesuch artists on the lineup, all performing on Sunday: Emmylou Harris, Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Wanda Jackson. In addition, The Low Anthem co-hosts a backstage hootenanny Saturday night to benefit the Newport Festivals Foundation.

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang kicked off their UK tour with a performance in Birmingham to which the Times of London gives four stars, describing "lang's gorgeous voice" as "a versatile weapon of mass seduction." The tour hits London tonight for the first of two nights at the Royal Festival Hall. The North American tour begins in two weeks. lang recently spoke with the Huffington Post about her new album, Sing it Loud, to which Canada's StarPhoenix gives five stars, calling it "a winning amalgam of lang's many, many musical influences."

The Fourth Annual World Science Fair gets under way in New York City today. Pat Metheny will join the proceedings Saturday night for Music and the Spark of Spontaneity, a performance and panel discussion, moderated by WNYC's John Schaefer, examining what goes on inside the brain as music is being created. The event offers a live tour of Metheny's masterful musical mind at work as he performs and engages in discussion with leading scientist/musicians.

This Memorial Day weekend, Jessica Lea Mayfield kicks off a week-long European tour ... Laurie Anderson brings Delusion to Germany ... James Farm continues its European tour in France, Netherlands ... Ben Folds launches Japan tour ... Emmylou Harris plays Ireland, UK ... Wanda Jackson is in Knoxville ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica are in Germany ... Natalie Merchant celebrates Levon Helm's 71st birthday in NY ... Randy Newman performs in Phoenix ... Punch Brothers play two festival sets ... and more ...

Philip Selway "emerged from a couple of months in the Radiohead lair," as he puts it, to give a solo performance at the Liverpool Sound City festival this past Saturday. While there, he spoke with Drowned in Sound about his debut solo album, Familial, and the challenges of developing as a solo artist after all these years in the band. He also shares his thoughts on band mate Thom Yorke's dance performance in the video for Radiohead's "Lotus Flower." Selway performs another solo set this summer at the UK's Truck Festival in July.

Jessica Lea Mayfield has been nominated for New/Emerging Artist of the Year at the 10th Annual Americana Music Association Honors and Awards; the awards ceremony will take place at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in October. Mayfield launches a week-long European tour in Gent, Belgium, on Friday, followed by shows in Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, and Amsterdam. Her US summer tour opens with a set at Bonnaroo and includes a series of shows with The Avett Brothers.

Laurie Anderson brings her latest piece, Delusion, to the Brighton Festival with a performance at the Brighton Concert Hall Thursday night, preceded by a conversation there tonight about her work, her influences, her collaborations, and her thoughts on art, language, and storytelling. She spoke with BBC 6 Music about Delusion, which the BBC calls "a highlight of this year's Brighton Festival." The tour continues in Germany this weekend, followed by shows in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and beyond.

Bob Dylan celebrates his 70th birthday today, and what better occasion than that to revisit Wanda Jackson's take on the legendary songwriter's "Thunder on the Mountain," as heard on her new, Jack White-produced album, The Party Ain't Over. Dylan himself, who once described Jackson as "an atomic bomb with lipstick," had suggested Jackson record the song, and it paid off with what HitFix called a "motorcyle-movie nasty" rendition of the tune. Watch the video here. Jackson performs live this week in Little Rock, Memphis, and Knoxville.

James Farm band mates Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland continue their tour across Europe, with stops in Norway, France, and Benelux before returning to the US for four nights at NY's Jazz Standard in June. JazzTimes, in a review of James Farm's self-titled debut album, says: "The band reaches out to a wider world through 10 diverse, intriguing originals that boast melodic clarity, rhythmic allure and improvisational concision ... James Farm is a very cool album."