Punch Brothers recently announced via Twitter that they've "just put the finishing touches on the 18th of 18 songs that we've earmarked for our new record." Even with that to look forward to, the band also has two New York performances of A Prairie Home Companion coming in early December. Until then, Paste has published a video interview with the Punch Brothers from the CMJ music conference in which the guys give some insight into their instruments.

Dan Auerbach brings his tour to New York City's Webster Hall tonight. Things kicked off last week in Columbus, Ohio, with what UWeekly calls "a very intimate show and one that you should be kicking yourself for if you missed it." The Boston Herald calls Monday's set at the Paradise in Boston an "exhilarating" show, at which "Auerbach opened the sonic floodgates."

Steve Reich's Drumming, once described by the New York Times as a piece that "inhabits our bones and viscera," makes novelist Kim Echlin's playlist in the Times blog Paper Cuts. "It is gorgeous process music," she writes, "lasts about an hour ... and you feel surprised, as if suddenly waking from a brief dream, when it is over." So Percussion performs the piece in an all-Reich program at Stanford in January, at which the composer joins on his Clapping Music.

As Wilco’s European tour continues, the vinyl reissue of the band's catalog is now complete with today's release of Being There, the band's second studio album. Upon its original release, The Independent's Andy Gill compared it favorably to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street. Today, Gill praises Wilco's recent London show, which closed with a special take of a song off Being There, "a magical, moving conclusion to one of the best gigs of the year, by one of the best bands in the world."

The Low Anthem is closing out its month-long US tour with Blind Pilot in Boston on Thursday. There's much more ahead, including shows in Europe and back in the States for several dates with Josh Ritter and a WFUV benefit with Rosanne Cash. Now, the band announces a two-week, ten-city tour with The Avett Brothers, across the Midwest, in February and March 2010.

Bill Frisell "keeps stirring up fine and fresh new ideas" ... the St. Lawrence makes "big news" with Adams's String Quartet ... Dan Auerbach takes tour to Canada ... Carolina Chocolate Drops do three dates in California ... Shawn Colvin plays Portland, Maine ... Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe are in Osaka ... Kronos plays Reich at the Kimmel Center ... The Low Anthem, Blind Pilot visit Virginia ... Brad Mehldau Trio tours France, Spain ... Youssou N'Dour docu delivers in Denver ... Nicholas Payton plays St. Louis ... Wilco bookends Baltic Rolling Stone fest with sold-out sets ... and more ...

John Adams's new blog, Hell Mouth, has been given a "cheers" in The Guardian, which describes the blog as both "hilarious" and "brilliant." The St. Lawrence String Quartet continues its world tour with the String Quartet Adams wrote for the group in 2008, in concerts in Des Moines and Ann Arbor this weekend. The Detroit Free Press says "the appearance of a new Adams string quartet is big news."

Natalie Merchant will perform and discuss a selection of songs from her forthcoming Nonesuch release at the new Free Word Centre in London on November 18. She has been researching, writing, and recording a collection of songs adapted from the works of various classic and contemporary poets; the evening will give a unique insight into the project prior to the album’s release in early 2010.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are on tour in California this week, performing at UC Santa Barbara tomorrow night. The Santa Barbara Independent spoke with band member Don Flemons to preview the show and discuss the resurgent old-time string band music scene. Fans across the country can catch the group's performance on Later ... with Jools Holland on Ovation TV tonight.

Kronos Quartet performed at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday as part of Kronos's Perspectives series, the only artist to be given such a focus this season. It also happens to coincide with the Hall's current festival of Chinese music, and, says the New York Times, "Of the many Western ensembles trooping into Carnegie to play Chinese music (or music about China) the Kronos is by far the most adept at cultural crossing over."

Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe's tour of Japan, New Zealand, and Australia begins in Nagoya, Japan, tonight. Joachim Cooder will join on drums, and singer Juliette Commagere as special guest vocalist. In the Japanese concert programs, Ry offers a short text giving a little taste of what to expect at the shows as only Cooder could. The Nonesuch Journal has an exclusive first-look at that here.

Just as Wilco begins its tour through Europe in the UK tonight, the band's 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has nabbed the No. 2 slot on the list of the 50 Best Albums of the Decade according to Paste magazine and claims the No. 1 spot in a poll of the magazine's readers. "Through its circuitous provenance and runaway success," says Paste, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot proved that great art—even in difficult times—will find the light of day."