Pat Metheny and Orchestrion, his latest Nonesuch release and worldwide tour, were the subject of a feature on the latest episode of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. "Seeing the orchestrion in action is like watching Santa's workshop," says NPR, "if Santa was a jazz cat." The tour is in California this week, where the San Diego Union Tribune calls the album "dazzling" and the Santa Barbara Independent calls it "wonderful."

Laurie Anderson, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Emmylou Harris make Record Store Day appearances ... Louis Andriessen curates at Carnegie Hall ... The Black Keys play CMU and FLA ... Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz curate at The Stone ... The Low Anthem plays Brooklyn ... Pat Metheny tours the Southwest ... Punch Brothers conquer California ... Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau duo in New York state ... Rokia Traoré rounds out US tour ... Caetano Veloso hits SFJAZZ ... Sarah Watkins celebrates Earth Day in Nashville ... Glenn Kotche celebrates Burt Bacharach in Osaka ... and more ...

Sara Watkins will join Garrison Keillor and the cast of public radio's A Prairie Home Companion on a coast-to-coast concert tour this August and September that will take on the everlasting theme of romantic love, fittingly dubbed the Summer Love Tour. The tour kicks off August 10 at the Interlochen Arts Festival and runs through a mid-September closer in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Laurie Anderson is in London for four nights to perform her latest work, Delusion, at the Barbican. The Evening Standard says "Anderson drew us into her dream-like world and fed us stories, poetic anecdotes, observations and meditations" through to the "bold, exciting ending." The Guardian, Times (UK), and Financial Times each give it four stars. She spoke with the BBC about the show and her new album, Homeland, from which will sign copies of a limited-edition vinyl single on Record Store Day, Saturday.

The Low Anthem returned to New York's Bowery Ballroom last night for another unforgettable performance and will stay on in New York through Friday's set at The Bell House in Brooklyn. The concert this Wednesday at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, is noteworthy both as a homecoming for the band and because proceeds from the show will now go to the United Way's Rhode Island Flood Recovery Fund.

Caetano Veloso's US tour continues at LA's Greek Theatre Thursday after a set of what the New York Times calls "typically tuneful and smart" music in New York and one in DC. L.A. Weekly sees Veloso's latest album, zii e zie, as a "rewarding reinvention" of conventional sounds. KTVU in San Francisco, where Veloso heads Saturday for SFJAZZ, calls him a "living legend of Brazilian music."

The Low Anthem's headlining tour of North America brings the quartet back to the States and straight to New York's Bowery Ballroom tonight after two shows in Canada. Time Out New York calls it a Must-See Show; WNYC includes this "warm folk" in its Gig Alert. The Aquarian Weekly calls the band's Nonesuch debut album "an ambitious achievement." Paste takes a look at the forthcoming follow up, being mixed by Bright Eyes producer Mike Mogis.

Leave Your Sleep, Natalie Merchant's first studio recording in seven years, is out this week. Merchant kicks off a US tour with two shows in New York City and an appearance on ABC's Good Morning America. Her performance at the TED Conference is now online. The Sun gives five stars to the "breathtaking" new album. The Daily Telegraph gives four stars to the "gentle, lush, and magnificent" work. The Daily Express gives it four stars too, calling it "a real achievement." The Star-Ledger cites "the warm glow in her voice and the casual virtuosity of the wide-ranging music." Paste calls it "effortlessly elegant."

Caetano Veloso does DC ... Laurie Anderson plays four nights in Sweden ... the Assads go back to their roots ... The Black Keys headline Yuri's Night Bay Area ... Bill Frisell has four nights at Yoshi's Oakland ... Richard Goode plays Detroit ... Kronos is in residence at Duke ... The Low Anthem is in Toronto ... Brad Mehldau Trio too ... Pat Metheny plays three shows in Florida ... Punch Brothers make music in Montana ... Rokia Traoré begins US tour ... Wilco ends one ... and more ...

Rokia Traoré kicks off a four-week spring tour of the United States and the UK this weekend with a Saturday night set at the Stewart Theatre in Raleigh, North Carolina. She will spend the next week playing up and down the East Coast of the US, followed by a UK leg starting later this month. For the UK dates, Traoré will be joined by Mercury Prize-nominated British trio Sweet Billy Pilgrim.

Caetano Veloso’s new album, zii e zie, was released last week on Nonesuch Records. Now comes the start of a six-city US tour, which kicks off at New York City's Terminal 5 tonight. NPR affiliate WNYC has chosen tonight's show for its Gig Alert, offering a free download of the album track "Sem Cais." In a series of video interviews on nonesuch.com, Veloso describes the music on the album as transamba, or “samba transcending itself.”

Brazilian-born guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad are delving deeper into their roots in a series of live performances titled De Volta as Raizes (Back to our Roots). The concerts examine the brothers' ancestral roots in Lebanon, following the success of Sérgio's Latin Grammy-winning composition "Tahhiyya li ossoulina," off their most recent Nonesuch release, Jardim abandonado. They'll be joined by pianist/singer/composer Clarice Assad, percussionist Jamey Haddad, and Lebanese singer Christiane Karam in an exploration of the ties between the musics of the Middle East and Brazil.