During the last leg of their US tour, The Magnetic Fields played several nights at The Town Hall in New York. While there, Stephin Merritt invited the folks at Other Music backstage to discuss the new record and tape a few solo performances—just him and his bouzouki—of “The Nun’s Litany,” from the new album, and “This Little Ukulele,” from his soundtrack for the 2000 film Eban & Charley. You can watch the videos now ...

In this final episode of the five-part video series on Emmylou Harris's new record, All I Intended to Be, due out on Tuesday, Emmylou reflects on her long relationship with the Seldom Scene's John Starling, Mike Auldridge, and Tom Gray, who join her again on three of the new album's tracks: Merle Haggard's "Kern River," J. C. Crowley and Jack Wesley Routh's  "Beyond the Great Divide," and Billy Joe Shaver's "Old Five and Dimers Like Me," the lyrics of which inspired the album's title.

In this fourth of five episodes in the video interview series on the forthcoming album All I Intended to Be, Emmylou Harris talks about her self-penned tune "Gold," and the joys of having Dolly Parton sing  harmony vocals on it. "I really believe she has an extra thing," marvels Emmylou, "like an Earl Scruggs tuner on her vocal cords, that allows her to do five notes in one beat." Check in tomorrow for the final episode, on being reunited with old friends for the new record.

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.