Carolina Chocolate Drops, as announced earlier this week, will release their Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, on February 23, 2010. Now comes the announcement of a two-month tour, with dates across the United States, from Atlanta to Boston, and the UK, this January and February, leading up to and following the new album's release date, capped by a set at Schuba's in Chicago.

Natalie Merchant's musical sweep through London concludes with a free performance at the Free Word Centre, with songs from her forthcoming Nonesuch debut, Leave Your Sleep. Natalie was featured on BBC Radio 4's Today earlier this week. Her guest turn at Friday's opening night concert of the London Jazz Festival is available via BBC Radio 3, and BBC Radio Scotland has a preview of songs from the album on Global Gathering.

The Magnetic Fields’ Realism will be released by Nonesuch on January 26, 2010. The follow-up to 2008’s Distortion finds Stephin Merritt drawing inspiration from late 1960s / early 70s orchestral and psychedelic folk for an all-acoustic set. A Nonesuch Store exclusive, now available for pre-order, includes the album on vinyl or CD plus a limited-edition, silk-screened poster signed by Merritt. The band will tour the US in support of the album beginning February 4.

The Low Anthem is back on the road with several dates in Europe in the coming coming week. Closer to home, the band has been nominated for three Boston Music Awards: Act of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year, making it one of only two bands with all three. Spinner has named "Charlie Darwin" its Video of the Day; Magnet says: "The song’s lush harmonies and sparse instrumental sound combined with the video’s strange desultory main character convey a certain sorrow that will haunt you for days on end."

Wilco's European tour comes to a close this week with two shows in the Netherlands. Tonight's concert at the Paradiso in Amsterdam will be webcast live on the band's site. There are already more live performances planned for next year, including a gala benefit honoring Neil Young as MusiCares Person of the Year during Grammy week, a Canadian tour, and, now, the End of the Road Festival in England, which the band will headline next September.

Stephen Sondheim talks with Frank Rich in Boston ... John Adams receives NEA Opera Honors Award ... Dan Auerbach's tour continues in Maryland and North Carolina ... Christina Courtin comes to NYC's Housing Works Café ... Autumn in Normandy fest celebrates Philip Glass ... Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller play two shows in Boise ... Brad Mehldau Trio, Wilco are in Italy ... Natalie Merchant launches London Jazz Fest ... Youssou N'Dour sings in Dar es Salaam ... Allen Toussaint has two shows in Spain ... Dawn Upshaw joins LA Phil ... and more ...

Wilco's European tour concludes in the Netherlands next week, where the band will webcast Monday night's show in Amsterdam live. The group's much-anticipated contribution (with Feist and Jamie Lidell) to Beck's Record Club is now available: "Little Hands" from the 1969 Skip Spence album Oar. Also on the covers front, Peter Gabriel's forthcoming covers album will include songs by The Magnetic Fields and Randy Newman.

Youssou N'Dour's recent 50th birthday was marked with a cover article from Songlines and a BBC radio documentary. "I'd never heard a voice like it," Peter Gabriel tells the BBC of first hearing Youssou's music, "so smart and emotional at the same time." Youssou is due to perform at an event by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, this weekend and will receive the Medal of Honor from Lille, France, during next week's World Forum Lille.

The Low Anthem is set to close out its tour with Blind Pilot at the Paradise in Boston tonight. Earlier this week, during a stop in Charlottesville, Virginia, the band taped a performance of "To Ohio" for WNRN now on YouTube. The Boston Herald tracks the band's rise to larger venues while retaining the "crackling Americana ethos" fans and critics have come to appreciate. The band has contributed a track to Hard Rock's benefit album to fight hunger and poverty.

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.