Nataly Dawn's solo album How I Knew Her is set for release next month and is already garnering critical praise. Dawn "delivers a seductive and singular solo album," says BBC Music. "It’s the sound of a woman brimming with ideas as she seizes her moment ... Dawn has the intelligence to sway the cognoscenti, the wide-eyed charm to seduce the masses, and an other-worldliness that ensures that, for all those she embraces, nobody sounds quite like her." Mojo, Independent on Sunday, and Daily Telegraph all give the album four stars, with the Telegraph calling it "delightful."

There's still more than a month to go before 2012 comes to a close, but already the music magazines have begun to weigh in on the year's best music. Uncut, Mojo, and Paste have all published their lists of the Best Albums of the Year, and included among them are a number of Nonesuch releases: the latest from The Black Keys, Ry Cooder, Dr. John, Jonny Greenwood, Punch Brothers, Carolina Chocolate Drops, and much more.

Lianne La Havas closed out her US tour with sold-out shows in LA and San Francisco this weekend. Friday's concert at LA's Roxy Theatre was "a pitch-perfect performance," raves the Los Angeles Times. She "delivered on the promise of her soulful, mature debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?," says the Times. "She was, to put it simply, fantastic ... a natural talent with boundless potential whose charisma is matched only by her musical prowess." La Havas performed on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic Friday morning; watch her KCRW take on the album track "Forget" here.

Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra's new album, The Art of Instrumentation: Homage to Glenn Gould, is "lovely and alluring," says NPR Music, with "fresh and intriguing makeovers of several Bach keyboard classics ... There are many moments in this album to make you smile, wonder and simply bask in the beauty of the music." Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica continue their tour of Asia with performances at Tokyo's Suntory Hall.

The Black Keys launch an arena tour of the western US in Fresno, California, tonight, including stops at the famed Santa Barbara Bowl, the Staples Center in LA, and in Arizona and New Mexico. Tegan and Sara open. Just announced: The Black Keys will headline Lollapalooza Brazil and Lollapalooza Chile next year. At the Global Festival this past Saturday, the band "tore through a set of searing, hard-riffing rock," raves MTV, "one that had the 60,000 who packed Central Park's Great Lawn losing their collective minds."

The Brad Mehldau Trio’s new album, Where Do You Start, a companion disc to this spring’s critically acclaimed Ode, is out now. The new album, featuring interpretations of ten tunes by other composers plus one Mehldau original, earns four stars from the Guardian, Independent on Sunday, Times of London, and Daily Telegraph, and five stars from the Financial Times, which says the Trio gives "an adventurous sheen to modern jazz." NPR's Fresh Air says: "The pianist builds his improvisation like a master storyteller." The BBC finds Mehldau "entering a new prime phase in his career."

Jonny Greenwood, whose soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film The Master is out now, spoke with NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, about being both the guitarist for Radiohead and a highly respected composer. Says New York magazine of The Master: "While Anderson paints with light, composer Jonny Greenwood is painting with sound." The score "is positively marvelous," says MTV. It just may be the best score you'll hear all year ... as mercurial and multilayered as The Master itself."

Ry Cooder’s new album, Election Special is out now in the US. "A guitar great takes a shot at political satire and hits the mark," exclaims Rolling Stone in a four-star review. "Election Special is protest music delivered with a patriot’s gifts—the American-roots beauty and expert fire in Ry Cooder’s playing—and long memory." The album earns four stars from MSN as well, where it is streaming in full this week. Cooder, says MSN, "has returned to early, deep roots in American folk to forge the most impassioned music of his 50-year career."

Ry Cooder’s new album, Election Special, is out this week. With its UK release today, having previously earned four stars from Mojo, Election Special has received four-star reviews from the Guardian, Independent, Independent on Sunday, Financial Times, and Scotland on Sunday, as well as the Irish Times. "After last year's magnificent Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, Ry Cooder returns to the political arena with a vengeance," says the Guardian, which calls it "an entertaining, thoughtful and bravely original set." The Independent on Sunday says Cooder's latest albums "represent the most cogent work of his long career."

Lianne La Havas' debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered last night. "[S]ometimes all it takes to snap me out of a late-summer heat coma," says NPR's Tom Moon, "is the sound of a new and electrifying voice—like that of Lianne La Havas." The Los Angeles Times calls the album "sublime," saying: "[W]ith Is Your Love Big Enough?, Miss La Havas vaults right to the big leagues. Repeated listenings only prove how strong and artful this collection is."

Lianne La Havas' debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, is set for its US release tomorrow, August 7, and is already earning critical acclaim. The Associated Press calls it "outstanding ... not just one of the year’s best debuts, but one of the year’s best albums." The New York Times finds "an innate sense of confidence" in the tunes. The Globe and Mail says the album's "dozen tracks are unanimously marvelous." The San Francisco Chronicle says: "It's easy to see why so many people are taken with Lianne La Havas ... [I]t's hard not to want to shout, 'Viva La Havas!'"

Ry Cooder will join a number of artists in celebrating the centenary of folk legend Woody Guthrie in This Land Is Your Land, a concert at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on October 14. Cooder, whom Uncut has described as "a modern-day Woody Guthrie," has a new album, Election Special, out on August 21, and Uncut has named it Album of the Month. "In a recording career that stretches back more than four decades," says Uncut, "Cooder has never before made an album as immediate as Election Special." Mojo gives it four stars.