Natalie Merchant's US summer tour is still a month away, but a select few will enjoy a performance of songs from her recent album, Leave Your Sleep, this weekend, as she performs at the West Chester Poetry Conference. The Philadelphia Inquirer calls the album "an ambitious work that embraces fun, story, and sadness." Conference co-founder Dana Gioa calls it "unprecedented" and tells the Inquirer: "She's the Franz Schubert of folk-rock."

Following the June 22 release of her new album, Homeland, Laurie Anderson will bring an intimate live show, Another Day in America: Songs from the Album "Homeland" and Other Stories, to New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Philadelphia’s World Café Live, and Alexandria, Virginia's The Birchmere, in addition to performing on The Late Show with David Letterman. You can watch "Victory," an installment in the weekly series of videos featuring her male alter ego, Fenway Bergamot, here at Nonesuch.com.

The Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed-curated festival Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House culminated this weekend with a number of events, including one that captured the hearts of Sydney's canine community and the attention of news media across the globe: Music for Dogs, a 20-minute piece Anderson wrote and performed for an audience of purebreds and mutts alike. Anderson called it "a highlight of my life."

Stephin Merritt is in Seattle this week for screenings of two projects at the Seattle International Film Festival: Strange Powers, the new documentary about him and The Magnetic Fields, which Seattle radio station KEXP calls "exquisite," and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the classic film for which he has written and will perform a new score.

Kronos Quartet is in Taiwan for the Traditional Arts Festival ... Laurie Anderson plays the Sydney Opera House for Vivid LIVE ... The Black Keys continue tour in Kansas City and Wakarusa ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica tour Russia ... Brad Mehldau solos in the UK ... Pat Metheny takes Orchestrion to Seoul ... Allen Toussaint, Don Byron play The Bright Mississippi in Vermont ... Sara Watkins guests on A Prairie Home Companion ... and more ...

Laurie Anderson's performances at Vivid LIVE, the festival she and her husband, Lou Reed, have curated in Sydney, Australia, continue through the weekend, including the multi-artist Slow Music Night, the canine-friendly Music for Dogs, and Day for Night Movies, a marathon screening set to live scores. Pink Paper gives four stars to Anderson's forthcoming album, Homeland, full of "beguiling, beautiful and mysterious listens" and "spine-chilling moments."

The Black Keys began their months-long tour last night at The Depot in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that "dirty grooves were unleashed all night" and says the band's new album, Brothers, "has added more swagger—in other words, rock 'n' roll—to the duo's foundation of bluesy, R&B-influenced soul explorations, and the band is all the better for it." The Boston Phoenix says the duo is "making quintessentially American music."

The Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed-curated Vivid LIVE festival continues at the Sydney Opera House, with performances from Anderson through the weekend. Nonesuch is counting down to the June 22 release of her album Homeland with the second in a five-video series featuring Fenway Bergamot, Anderson's male alter ego. In today's segment, "Pictures and Things," he talks about the cultural shift toward abstraction and what Nixon has to do with it.

Punch Brothers' new album, Antifogmatic, is due out on Nonesuch Records two weeks from today, on June 15. Fans who sign up for the band's newsletter receive a free download of the album track "Alex" now. Just prior to the album's launch, Punch Brothers perform at Bonnaroo and begin their run of shows opening for Steve Martin. On release day, the band will give a free performance and sign copies of the new album at the Twist & Shout music store in Denver.

Natalie Merchant's tour of the UK and Ireland comes to a close at The Helix in Dublin tonight; her US summer tour gets under way next month at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, New Jersey. In the mean time, fans in the US can catch an encore presentation of her performance of "Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience," off Leave Your Sleep, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are gearing up for their performances at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, next weekend, after what the Albany Times Union calls a "joyous, raucous and educational" set at MASS MoCA. The Times Union exclaims: "The Carolina Chocolate Drops are just brilliant. Who else could make a straight-up folk festival workshop feel like a hoedown for hundreds?"

The Carolina Chocolate Drops celebrate Memorial Day weekend in Maryland and Massachusetts ... Laurie Anderson launches Vivid LIVE festival in Sydney ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica bring the Seasons to Berlin and Moscow ... Brad Mehldau, Anne Sofie von Otter perform his Love Songs in Oslo ... Natalie Merchant continues UK tour ... Sara and Sean Watkins headline the Strawberry Jamboree Music Festival ... Wilco closes out Europe tour ... and more ...