In episode three of the Emmylou Harris video interview, Emmylou discusses her working relationship with friends Kate and Anna McGarrigle. The three co-wrote a number of songs on her last Nonesuch release, Stumble Into Grace, and came together again to write and perform two songs on the new album, All I Intended to Be: "How She Could Sing the Wildwood Flower" and "Sailing Round the Room." "I always love working with Kate and Anna McGarrigle," says Emmylou of the partnership. "It's like a songwriting camp." Check in tomorrow for episode four, "Gold," on harmonizing with Dolly Parton.

In this second of five episodes from the Nonesuch Journal's video interview with Emmylou Harris about the making of her new album, All I Intended to Be, Emmylou talks about the album's centerpiece, Tracy Chapman's "All That You Have Is Your Soul." She recalls the first time she heard the tune, off Chapman's second record, 1989's Crossroads, saying: "I was just stunned by it." Check in tomorrow for episode three, "Sailing Round the Room," on working with Kate and Anna McGarrigle.

Today, the Nonesuch Journal launches a week-long series of video interviews with Emmylou Harris, leading up to next week's release of her third solo record on Nonesuch, All I Intended to Be. Over the course of these five episodes, the singer/songwriter discusses the making of the new album and her relationship to its songs. In this initial episode, Emmylou shares the story behind the disc's opening track, "Shores of White Sand," the song that first inspired her to record the new album. Here Emmylou explains the inextricable link between her own version and the original.

Earlier this year, Steve Reich joined Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore for a discussion of the composer's career at the annual South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. Pitchfork Media's new video site, pitchfork.tv, recorded the event back in March and has now posted it as a two-part special presentation you can watch here. Moore opens the interview by claiming the pioneering minimalist composer as one of his own, declaring: "Whether he knows it or not, he's kind of a rock 'n' roller." Moore says that the 1971 piece Drumming was his introduction to Reich's music.

New York's Other Music presented Toumani Diabate in a rare in-store solo lecture-demonstration earlier this year for the Live at Other Music series, to celebrate the release of his new album, The Mande Variations, and now offers up two videos from the event. "When we’re lucky enough to host a musician with the singular vision and dedication of Malian griot and kora prodigy Toumani Diabate," says Other Music's Josh Madell, "it makes us all take pause."

k.d. lang's "Shadow and the Frame," off her recent Nonesuch release Watershed, joins an eclectic mix of song selects on USA Today's Playlist this week, which also includes the likes of the Rolling Stones and Ray Davies. USA Today says k.d. sings "elegantly, painfully" on the track, with its "spare and exquisite string arrangement." You can hear the song on a video clip that is the first of six webisodes launched in January, available here.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson's Academy Award-winning epic There Will Be Blood is out on DVD today. Two versions are available: a single-disc version and a special collector's edition with an additional bonus disc featuring among other things, a 1920s-era silent film on the early days of the oil industry, set to music by the film's scorer, Jonny Greenwood.

The Tim Burton-directed film version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Helena Bonham Carter as his cohort in crime, is available now on DVD. The special collector's edition includes an in-depth look at the Sondheim musical, behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the film, and the history of the legend of the Demon Barber, among a number of additional special features.

In the Nonesuch Journal's final episode from Stephen Sondheim's discussion of Sweeney Todd, the composer expresses a preference for singing actors (over acting singers) and has high praise for all of the actors in the film, beginning with Johnny Depp's "extraordinary" performance in the title role.

In the second installment of the Stephen Sondheim interview on the making of Sweeney Todd, the composer discusses some of the major inspirations behind the musical (think film) and puts to rest one longstanding misconception about the work. In the end, though, it could all be summed up in one very basic principle; says Sondheim: "All I wanted to do was scare an audience."

Stephen Sondheim sat down for an interview to discuss the forthcoming film version of his musical masterpiece Sweeney Todd. Over the next few days, leading up to the December 18 release of the film's soundtrack, the Nonesuch Journal will bring you exclusive video footage of the composer's candid take on Tim Burton's adaptation of his beloved work. In this first segment, Sondheim comments on the ins and outs of putting this "slasher musical" on screen. "Unlike all other movies of stage musicals that I know," he says, "this really is an attempt to take the material of the stage musical and completely transform it into a movie."

As we reported last week, k.d. lang recently appeared on the UK talk show Parkinson to perform the new song "I Dream of Spring," off her upcoming Nonesuch release, Watershed,
due out in February. You can now watch the performance here.