Natalie Merchant’s new self-titled album, her first of entirely original songs in 13 years, is out now on Nonesuch Records. "Merchant creates a rich musical tapestry that transcends the typical vagary of pop music," raves the Associated Press. The Daily Telegraph gives the album a perfect five stars, naming it Album of the Week: "There is something quietly magnificent about her vocal presence." The Sunday Express says the album is "brimming with wit, insight and compassion." Merchant "is in terrific form," says the Times of London. "It is Merchant’s mature, versatile voice that steals the show."

The Black Keys, after performing “Fever,” from their new album, Turn Blue, on Che Tempo Che Fa in Italy Sunday, performs on BBC Two’s Later … with Jools Holland tonight and Friday. On Wednesday, The Black Keys perform on BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe. The band is featured on the cover of the new issue of Mojo magazine (pictured at left), and Turn Blue is Album of the Month in Uncut, which exclaims: “Turn Blue turns out to be The Black Keys’ sneakiest, subtlest and most seductive album.” The Independent gives it five stars, calling it "a post-modern blues-rock marvel."

The Pat Metheny Unity Group—Chris Potter, Antonio Sanchez, Ben Williams, and Giulio Carmassi—concluded the North American leg of its world tour, performing music from the debut album, Kin (←→), and much more at New York's Town Hall on Friday. "Metheny is one of the most industrious creative engines in jazz, and his relentless breadth has become a calling card, if not a selling point, among his fans," says the New York Times. "New York was his final stop on a grueling North American tour, which meant that the structure and pace of the production had been nailed down tight." The Group begins a months-long European tour at the end of April. 

Nickel Creek and their new album, A Dotted Line, due Tuesday, are the subject of a feature in the New York Times. "The most striking feature about A Dotted Line is the sheer strength of the singing, and the frequency with which it takes flight in three-part harmony," writes the Times' Nate Chinen. "The signature Nickel Creek blend ... comes across loud and clear." He goes on to say: "There’s also a high level of songcraft on the album, though it’s scrupulously subtle, in the realm of elegant melodic contour and deft harmonic movement."

Mehliana: Taming the Dragon, the debut album from the electric duo of Brad Mehldau and Mark Guiliana, is out now on Nonesuch Records (March 18 on vinyl). The album is "astonishing," exclaims Jazzwise magazine, "one of the best albums of 2014." Mehliana earns four stars from the Guardian and from MusicOMH, which calls it "wholly absorbing ... an intuitive, compelling dialogue between the two musicians." Tune in to BBC Radio 2's Jamie Cullum tonight to hear an interview with Mehldau. Watch a performance of the album track "Sleeping Giant" here.

Kin (←→), the debut album from Pat Metheny Unity Group—Chris Potter, Antonio Sanchez, Ben Williams, and Giulio Carmassi—has premiered in the top spot on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. "There’s a sprightliness and a captivating agility present throughout this album, even in its more reflective and graceful moments," says MusicOMH in a four-star review. "This suggests a new ensemble taking complete joy in the art of making creative music and taking new risks."

Inside Llewyn Davis has landed the top spot among the Top 10 Films of 2013 per Variety's Peter Debruge: "Inside Llewyn Davis, one of Joel and Ethan Coen's finest, was also the finest film this year." Film Comment and Paper also name it the Best Film of 2013. The Associated Press places it among the Top 10 Movies of the Year, saying: "In surveying the year at the movies, the topography is rich." Oscar Isaac (Llewyn Davis) and T Bone Burnett, who produced the film's soundtrack, participated in a Reddit AMA, answering fans' questions about the film, music, and more.

The new Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis has landed on a number of lists of the Best Movies of 2013, including those of The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times, whose A.O. Scott calls this "a year of superabundant quality" in film and places Inside Llewyn Davis at No. 1. "The musical performances—especially from Oscar Isaac, who plays the title character—are hauntingly lovely," he writes. Slate says: "Inside Llewyn Davis is the best film ever made about the folk revival—and one of the best ever made about music, period." 

Inside Llewyn Davis, the new film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, opens in select theaters this Friday, December 6. You can watch a new featurette on the music and making of the film here, as well as an excerpt from the film with the song "Please Mr. Kennedy." New York's David Edelstein calls the film "transcendentally soundtracked." The New Yorker's Anthony Lane writes: "If you love the Coens, or follow folk music, or hold fast to this period of history and that patch of New York, then the film can hardly help striking a chord." The New York Times's Janet Maslin exclaims: "Inside Llewyn Davis has the best T Bone Burnett soundtrack since the Coens’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

Ry Cooder's first live record in more than 35 years, Live in San Francisco, is featured in an article from The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson titled "Ry Cooder, Live Again." Wilkinson traces Cooder's career through his studio recordings—"Cooder’s catalogue, reflecting his capacious intelligence, is the broadest and deepest in popular music"—to the new live album. "The solos open like rooms, one into another," writes Wilkinson. "Some of the rooms are still as night, and in others the audience shouts like congregants cheering a preacher."

Pianist Jeremy Denk and mandolinist Chris Thile have each recently released recordings of music by Bach on Nonesuch Records: Denk's recording of the Goldberg Variations with a companion DVD of video "liner notes," and Thile's Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1. The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout says both "stand out from the pack," finding Denk's "gorgeously and insightfully played ... enthrallingly involving" and that Thile's offers "a thrillingly new palette of instrumental colors." He concludes: "If I had to guess what the future of recorded classical music will sound like, I'd bet on Mr. Thile's Bach—as well as on Mr. Denk's video liner notes. That's the kind of fresh thinking of which we can never have too much."

Chris Thile's solo tour brought him to Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Tuesday for an eclectic, sold-out set that featured music from his new album, Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1, and much more. "The most impressive musicians are often versatile, but few match the breadth of the brilliant mandolinist Chris Thile," raves the New York Times's Vivien Schweitzer. Of his performing Bach violin works on the mandolin, Schweitzer writes, "in Mr. Thile’s virtuosic hands, the results are breathtaking ... a revelatory reading, poignant and exuberant by turns."