Steve Reich stopped by the WNYC studios yesterday to discuss his new album, Daniel Variations, and the creation of its title piece, on The Leonard Lopate Show. You can download an MP3 of the segment at wnyc.org or listen to it in its entirety here.

Steve Reich will be the featured guest today on The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC, 93.9 FM. The composer will discuss his new album, Daniel Variations, and its title piece, written in memory of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The show also includes an interview with filmmaker Errol Morris about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Nicholas Payton spoke with WBGO producer Josh Jackson fresh from recording his Nonesuch debut, Into the Blue. With the album out this week, the show is now available at npr.org as part of the Favorite Sessions series, on which public radio hosts present their favorite in-studio sessions. "I'm always looking for unique moments, times and places when musicians are creating at a high level, and try to bring those moments to anyone who will listen," says Jackson. "This was the moment to get them," he says of Payton and the band. "The iron was hot."

The Black Keys' latest album, Attack & Release is featured on the latest edition of NPR's All Songs Considered. "Their previous four records were very heavy on loud guitars and very blues based," says the show's host, Bob Boilen. "Their new CD is produced by Brian Burton, also known as Danger Mouse, and though it's still basically a drums and guitar record, there are more quiet moments and more subtle moments going on here."

All this month, and running through May 12, BBC Radio 2 is airing a six-part documentary called Jac Holzman's Elektra Story, as part of the network's Monday night Music Club. In part three of the documentary, the company founder recounts the Nonesuch Records founder's earliest days and his hopes for the new endeavor. Joshua Rifkin was involved from the start and sums up the label's initial appeal this way: "Inexpensive classical record labels had been there before, but they looked like a budget production. And it was Jac's brilliant idea to think that one could do something that really looked distinctive, did not look low-rent, had a definite identity of its own."

Steve Reich's Daniel Variations was the featured album on last night's episode of WNYC's New Sounds. The title piece "justifiably has drawn a fair amount of attention and acclaim," says the show's host, John Schaefer. Daniel Variations, which the Sydney Morning Herald calls "a powerful composition," will receive its Australian premiere this Friday at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

The Magnetic Fields' Distortion tour may have come to a close, but that just means more time for Stephin Merritt to share another of his many talents: DJing. He stopped by the KCRW studios in his newly adopted hometown of Los Angeles this past Sunday to play guest DJ on Gary Calamar's late-night show.

The Brad Mehldau Trio's take on Oasis's "Wonderwall" is NPR's Song of the Day today. The track appears on the Trio's new Live album, on which the musicians "sound unusually lively and exploratory," says NPR. "Live is the finest live recording Mehldau has made. Collected from a series of 2006 concerts, these performances return to what Mehldau and his band do best: conversational improvisation, with idiosyncratic arrangements that rethink the popular songbook."