Wilco brought its US tour to a close last night, headlining the 10,000 Lakes Festival's Thursday run, and begins its European tour at Oslo's Oya Festival on August 13. NPR's Fresh Air reviews the band's recent Nonesuch release, Wilco (the album), describing it as an album about an acceptance that allows one to feel "at once humbled and emboldened ... Acceptance, but not complacency. Jeff Tweedy is suggesting how you can make stability sound like a tough artistic challenge and a grand adventure."
 

Amadou & Mariam bring their US tour with Coldplay to a close tonight in St. Louis. Welcome to Mali, the couple's latest release, comes in at number six on SPIN's list of The 20 Best Albums of 2009 ... So Far. After tonight's final tour performance, the music keeps playing, as CNN's African Voices, airing Saturday, takes a closer look at the husband-and-wife musical team. With their "positive and mesmeric vocals and [Amadou] Bagayoko's guitar playing," says CNN, "the duo have been feted by musicians across the world." Learn why by watching this weekend.

Christina Courtin plays the second of two shows in California this week in a set at San Francisco's Café du Nord tonight. She performed at Largo at the Coronet in LA on Tuesday, a set the Los Angeles Times dubbed "refreshingly un-ethereal." The paper's music blog explains, saying Christina "offered one of the best correctives to the ever more ubiquitous images of wispy, inscrutable hipstresses with a set of completely endearing yet really sturdy and inventive folk-pop."

Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble are teaming up with the LA Phil and the LA Master Chorale to present an all-Glass program tonight at the Hollywood Bowl, including "Spaceship," from Einstein on the Beach, described by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the most important and groundbreaking American operas in history," and a screening of the film Koyaanisqatsi, set to a new arrangement of Glass's score for the ensemble and orchestra. The Times says: "Glass's film music has helped make him perhaps the best-known classical composer of the last half-century." LA Weekly writes: "His progressions tend to be brilliantly subtle, forming, like gradated layers of color on canvas, some amazing aural paintings."

Kronos Quartet's performance in Brooklyn's Prospect Park last Thursday offered the sort of program for which the group earned once more the label "groundbreaking" in the New York Times review. The program featured works from Kronos's latest album, Floodplain, to which the Toronto Star gives a perfect four stars. "The Kronos Quartet never disappoints," exclaims the Star, "but on their latest disc they are even better than ever ... There isn't a single musical moment left wanting." The Arkansas Democrat-Gazzette gives it an A-, recommending in particular "the remarkable" album closer by Serbian-born composer Aleksandra Vrebalov.

Wilco's US tour behind their latest Nonesuch release, Wilco (the album), is due to wrap up this week, with a European tour slated to begin next month, after a set outside Detroit tonight and the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Minnesota on Thursday. Prior to the concerts, the Detroit Free Press talks to Nels Cline about his "head-spinning guitar pyrotechnics" and the Star Tribune talks to Jeff Tweedy about the new record and what's to come. GQ says of last Saturday's show in upstate New York that "the band has never sounded better." Buffalo News says Sunday's set in nearby Lewiston "was simply awesome ... Wilco is certainly the most interesting US band of its generation."

Sara Watkins celebrated her birthday in style this year: on June 7, the night before her 28th, Sara joined the legendary singer-songwriter Steve Earle and bluegrass masters Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver in a live concert performance at the Chuck Mathena Center in Princetown, West Virginia, for public radio's Mountain Stage. Now you can hear Sara's birthday-eve performance, with brother Sean on guitar, streaming online at npr.org.

Christina Courtin is set to perform at L.A.'s Largo at the Coronet tonight. The Los Angeles Times says of her recently released Nonesuch debut that it "is highly polished but still retains a sense of individuality." LAist says "you can't help but be drawn in by her expressive voice, and the 10 tracks reveal a seasoned artist. This may be her first record, but she's developed a confidence, a writing style and a playfulness that many singer/songwriters don't achieve until later in their careers." Her hometown paper, the Buffalo News says: "Like so many of the best records of its type—Joni Mitchell’s midperiod efforts come to mind, as does Norah Jones’ debut—Christina Courtin works its magic on the listener subversively, and over time."

The Low Anthem continues to tour the US behind their recent Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, returning to their home state of Rhode Island on August 1 to play the inimitable Newport Folk Festival, celebrating its 50th year. "There is nothing typical about Rhode Island Americana group The Low Anthem," writes Audiophile Audition, which gives the new album four stars, citing the "exquisite acoustics,""naturalistic feeling," and "direct and honest" approach of its recording.

Richard Goode enjoys the fruits of his artistic direction at Marlboro Music ... Amadou & Mariam play SoCal with Coldplay ... Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed perform at the Palace for Manchester Fest ... The Black Keys conquer Colorado ... David Byrne takes a Roman (work) holiday ... Shawn Colvin goes solo, joins Jackson Browne ... Christina Courtin's close to home in NYC ... Bill Frisell joins the McCoy Tyner Quintet in Italy ... The Low Anthem opts for Ottawa Blues Fest ... Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman's trios cross paths at Nice Jazz Fest ... Oumou Sangare closes US tour with Béla Fleck ... Chris Thile premieres mandolin concerto at Interlochen ... Allen Toussaint sees Spain, London ... Rokia Traoré tours UK's Larmer Tree Fest ... Dawn Upshaw, Gilbert Kalish light up Elora Fest ... Wilco plays Portland, Maine, upstate New York ... and more ... 

Amadou & Mariam's tour with Coldplay comes to Carson, California, tomorrow night. MTV has named their album Welcome to Mali among the Top 10 albums of the year so far. On the album, "the duo make breathtakingly beautiful, undeniably inspired music," says MTV. "[I]t's music for all seasons and all people." LA Weekly calls it "a wonderfully engaging blur of unexpected influences." The San Diego Union Tribune says that "few who listen will be able to resist." The Dallas Observer sees them likely to transcend the "world music" label, their music "capable of transforming unsuspecting English-speaking audiences into dancing throngs of joy."

Kronos Quartet will give the premiere of "Aheym," a new piece written for the group by the National's Bryce Dessner during a free outdoor concert in Brooklyn's Prospect Park as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn! series, tonight at 7:30 PM. Dessner, in an interview with Pitchfork about this piece and the many other projects he's been working on of late, explains: "I've long been a fan of Kronos. I think a lot of people with my kind of background in contemporary music tend to be, because they're just such an important group." Also on tonight's program are works from Kronos's recent Nonesuch release, Floodplain, among others.