Natalie Merchant’s kicks off a late-summer and fall tour featuring music from her new, self-title album with a performance at the Pabst Theatre in Milwaukee tonight, followed by stops Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle, Kansas City, DC, and more through December. While on tour, Merchant joins fellow Nonesuch artists Kronos Quartet, Rhiannon Giddens, Sam Amidon, and Olivia Chaney for a special set at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House as part of the Nonesuch at BAM celebration of the label's 50th anniversary. 

The Brooklyn Academy of Music's wide-ranging series of concerts and events Nonesuch Records at BAM: Celebrating a Label Without Labels, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Nonesuch Records, kicks off Tuesday night with the first of three consecutive nights of concerts from Philip Glass and Steve Reich plus a separate solo set from Brad Mehldau and continues through September 28. The New York Times says the series "reflects the broad curiosity and high standard of a label that has had notable successes ... with no guiding criteria other than instinct and taste." In conjunction with these events, BAMcinématek presents Nonesuch Records on Film, a salute to the label’s rich catalogue of movie soundtracks.

The Black Keys kick off North American Turn Blue tour in their home state of Ohio ... Laurie Anderson performs at Punkt Festival in Norway ... Bombino tours Northeast US ... Shawn Colvin joins Steve Earle in Minnesota ... Jeremy Denk performs Bach’s Goldberg Variations in France ... Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell's Austin City Limits set re-airs on PBS ... Robert Plant performs on BBC One's The One Show ... Steve Reich's Different Trains receives Singapore premiere ... and more ...

Conor Oberst has unveiled the third video from his new album Upside Down Mountain. You can watch the enigmatic short for "Common Knowledge," a companion piece to the album's first video, "Zigzagging Toward the Light," here. The video's release comes just a few days before he embarks on the second leg of a coast-to-coast US tour, beginning September 14 in Salt Lake City. Oberst will release two previously unheard songs, “Standing on the Outside Looking In” and “Sugar Street” for this year's Black Friday Record Store Day on November 28. 

The Black Keys kick off the North American leg of their Turn Blue world tour with two stops in their home state of Ohio this weekend, with shows in Columbus tonight and Cleveland on Saturday. For the tour, longtime Black Keys creative director Michael Carney has created his first-ever screen printed posters for the band. Special guests during the extensive tour include Cage The Elephant, Jake Bugg, and St. Vincent.

Sam Amidon, whose new album of reimagined folks songs, Lily-O, is due September 30, will tour the US and Europe this fall in support of the new release. Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Shahzad Ismaily, both of whom are on the new album, will join Amidon on select dates. Amidon also performs with Kronos Quartet and other label mates as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM later this month.

The Black Keys, who kick off the US leg of their Turn Blue world tour with two stops in their home state of Ohio this weekend, have just announced that the tour will be heading to Australia in April 2015, following the UK and European tours in February and March. The Australian tour kicks off at the Bluesfest Byron Bay on April 3 and includes sets at the two Rolling Green events and stops in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and Adelaide. Tickets go on sale Thursday, September 11, 2014.

Devendra Banhart and longtime friend, musical collaborator, and fellow singer-songwriter Andy Cabic (Vetiver) will tour California in October 2014, performing both individually and together in a casual mix of older and newer material. Banhart joins Iron and Wine and Stephin Merritt for Nonesuch Records at BAM in Brooklyn on September 19 and Caetano Veloso and Andrew Bird at the Hollywood Bowl on September 21. 

Joshua Redman is Detroit Jazz Festival Artist-in-Residence, performing three sets this Labor Day long weekend ... Bombino kicks off his latest US tour at Dave Matthews Band Caravan in Washington state, then heads to San Francisco ... Brad Mehldau and Kevin Hays, whose duo piano album Modern Music was released in 2010, tour Brazil ... Nickel Creek concludes its US tour in New Mexico and Colorado ... and more ...

The full line-up for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park has been announced, and performing are Conor Oberst, Shawn Colvin, and Emmylou Harris, who will have performed at each of the festival's 14 years, plus Tweedy and T Bone Burnett, among others. The free, annual outdoor music festival will take place October 3–5, 2014.

Caetano Veloso will bring his Abraçaço world tour to the US in September, stopping in Miami, Seattle, Davis, Oakland, and LA, where he makes his Hollywood Bowl debut on a bill with Andrew Bird and Devendra Banhart, and culminating in two nights in Brooklyn for Nonesuch Records at BAM. Veloso's performance at the Barbican in London this past spring earned five stars from the Times, Guardian, and The Arts Desk, which says: "Caetano Veloso gets more extraordinary."

Lianne La Havas unveils new music at Afropunk Fest in Brooklyn ... John Adams's I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky gets LA premiere ... Louis Andriessen’s De Materie is performed in Germany ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica play three nights at Switzerland's Sion Music Festival ... k.d. lang performs surrounded by the Rockies in Colorado for the Wake Up Festival ... Nickel Creek tours Texas ... Conor Oberst concludes his European tour in Portugal ... and more ...