AfroCubism has made the list of the Top 5 World Music Releases of 2010 according to WNYC's Soundcheck. Anastasia Tsioulcas, who assembled the list, spoke with the show's host John Schaefer, about her picks, on today's episode. Schaefer describes the album as an "amazing conglomeration of two traditions," to which Tsioulcas concurs: "Absolutely."

The Black Keys' Brothers lands at No. 2 on NPR's All Songs Considered listeners' picks of The Best Music of 2010. Also on the list are Carolina Chocolate Drops' Genuine Negro Jig and Ben Folds and Nick Hornby's Lonely Avenue. All Songs Considered producer Robin Hilton says of Brothers: "I think this is their fattest, richest, most sonically diverse album that they've done." Philip Selway's Familial has made the NPR All Songs Considered list for Best Album Covers of 2010. Carolina Chocolate Drops' Genuine Negro Jig is No. 4 on the Americana Music Association's Top 100 Albums of the Year.

Tune in to KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic today to hear the Black Keys perform tracks from their album, Brothers, which host Jason Bentley rated No. 1 on his Top Albums of 2010. The album comes in at No. 7 on TIME's Top 10 Albums of the Year; the magazine calls it "a classic, unmuddled rock-'n'-roll record." The New York Post places Brothers, an album "filled with ear-candy," at No. 6 in his Top Ten Albums of the Year. Watch a video for the album track "Everlasting Light" here.

Laurie Anderson's Homeland has made NPR's list of The Five Best Genre-Defying Albums of 2010. "Some of the most compelling music being made today comes from the increasingly blurry boundary between indie-rock and contemporary classical music," says WNYC's John Schaeffer. "And it's some of the most provocative and exciting work of the year." As dark as Homeland may be, "this is as accessible and rocking a record as Anderson has made in 25 years," Schaeffer insists. "Whether singing, speaking or doing that in-between thing she does, she is in great voice, and the production sounds awesome."

Steve Reich's 2x5 and the Nonesuch Records / Indaba Music contest to remix the piece were featured on the BBC World Service's The Strand. The composer and Dominique Leone, the creator of the winning remix, talk about the contest, the classical roots of remixing, and why 2x5 lent itself to the process. "Steve Reich's music is so based in rhythm," says Leone, "so when you can take little chunks of it and manipulate that and exploit the rhythm that's already there, it's not very difficult to make something that sounds good." Hear the remix here.

Louis Andriessen is the focus of a week-long Immersive Composer Spotlight from Q2, the online new-music station of New York's Classical WQXR, including broadcasts of De materie, De staat, De tijd, Rosa: The Death of a Composer, and Writing to Vermeer. "Descriptions of Andriessen's style abound with the same complex energy as his ecstatic, rhythmic experimentations," says Q2. "So sit back from the computer for a moment; his music rewards full attention and doesn't take background listening lightly."

Timothy Andres's debut album, Shy and Mighty, has made the New York Times Holiday Gift Guide for 2010. Traces of the composer's eclectic influences "show in this melodic, richly contrapuntal, often muscular 10-movement work," says the Times. "But what comes through most clearly is the inventiveness and originality of Mr. Andres’s own compositional voice." Andres will be featured on a special “Where Are They Now?” episode of NPR's From the Top this week; this “Alumni Musical Mavericks” program explores the different musical avenues five performers have taken since they first appeared on the show.

Philip Selway will be the guest on NPR's World Cafe today. Tune in on NPR stations across the United States or listen in online at xpn.org to hear Selway talk with the show's host, David Dye, and perform songs from his solo debut album, Familial. Selway recently selected the winner in the search for collaborators to remix the album track "Beyond Reason," which you can download at Spinner.

Tune in to NPR's World Cafe today to hear Folds and Hornby discuss their new album, Lonely Avenue, and to hear Folds perform a few of its songs. Folds's US tour takes him to Buffalo tonight, where Artvoice says the unexpected collaboration behind Lonely Avenue is a success: "Folds flourishes on this album, and his curious choice to collaborate with an author, when Folds himself is recognized by fans for his words, is a trick that pays off." The duo is the subject of a new piece on the BBC News.

The Malian and Cuban musicians behind AfroCubism close out their three-city tour of North America at The Town Hall in New York City tonight. The Times of London calls AfroCubism "an album of extraordinary cross-cultural musicianship." It was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, which sums up AfroCubism as "a summit of giants at play—their egos in check, their hearts open and the tangled history of two worlds flowing through their veins." The Wall Street Journal notes the album's "easy communion and some gorgeous details."

Punch Brothers will appear on NYC public radio station WFUV, 90.7 FM (wfuv.org), today at 1 PM ET, performing songs from their album Antifogmatic. Watch The Late Show with David Letterman tomorrow night for their performance with Steve Martin. And tune in to A Prairie Home Companion Thanksgiving weekend, when Punch Brothers will be the musical guests. They open for Dave Matthews Band in two shows this weekend.

AfroCubism will be featured on today's edition of PRI's The World; Nick Gold, the album's producer, will discuss the project, some 14 years in the making. The Village Voice cites two early tracks on the album as "about as perfect a blend of AfroCubism's two dominant cultures as you'll ever find; the rest of the album sustains that high ... At long last, Gold and his cohorts have achieved something that lives up to its original promise, a direct link between the Old World and the new." All Music says: "a true musical meeting of minds between the two cultures."