The Low Anthem's summer tour of Europe comes to the end of the road as the band plays the End of the Road festival this weekend and a sold-out show with Iron and Wine at Union Chapel next week. Their next scheduled US date is with Josh Ritter in October. During their tour with The Avett Brothers earlier this year, the band was captured on stage and backstage at the Egyptian Room in Indianapolis for an 11-minute video you can watch here.

Third Man and Nonesuch Records announce the release of the new album from Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Wanda Jackson on January 25, 2011. The Party Ain’t Over, produced by her friend Jack White, is a retro modern collection of music that showcases Jackson, now in her seventh decade and sounding as wickedly charismatic as ever. Jackson, credited with being the first woman to ever record a rock and roll song, will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Americana Music Awards in Nashville tonight.

The Americana Music Festival & Conference kicked off yesterday in Nashville. The festival's capstone event, the Americana Honors & Awards show, takes place tonight at the famed Ryman Auditorium and will be streaming live online at NPR.org. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are up for Duo/Group of the Year and will perform; Emmylou Harris will perform as well, as will Wanda Jackson, who will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.

On November 4, Punch Brothers and Steve Martin will perform together on The Late Show with David Letterman. Additional upcoming highlights include tour dates with the Dave Matthews Band and Dierks Bentley, as well as a special performance alongside T Bone Burnett at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Moreover, Jon Brion, who produced Punch Brothers' new album, Antifogmatic, will play a special opening set at the band’s LA show in October.

The video for "By Some Miracle," the opening track to Philip Selway's solo debut album, Familial, premiered on MySpace last week. It has now been posted to Selway's YouTube channel and can be seen here. The Miami New Times says of the video: "While it incorporates some Radiohead elements, we can't help but think the plot resembles a dark indie film: Filled with beautiful people, with psychological problems that aren't so pretty.

Nonesuch Records wishes to congratulate Punch Brothers' Noam Pikelny, who has been named the winner of the first annual Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. "Noam is the extraordinary banjoist for the Punch Brothers," Martin said in announcing the award, "playing not only traditional bluegrass, but classical, rock and jazz oriented music. He is a player of unlimited range and astonishing precision"

Rhys Chatham's A Crimson Grail is due out on Nonesuch next week, but Chicago audiences can celebrate early, as the Rhys Chatham Trio performs at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art tonight. The concert is named a Top Live Show by Time Out Chicago and a critics' choice of the Chicago Reader, which calls A Crimson Grail "gorgeous" and "monumental." Record Collector describes A Crimson Grail as "imaginative, bold and successful."

Due to the death of a family member, The Black Keys are rescheduling their show at the Charlottesville Pavilion this Thursday, September 9, to Tuesday, September 14, and the September 14 show at the Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina, has been moved to Thursday, September 16. The band apologizes for this scheduling shift and any inconvenience it may cause. They thank their fans for their patience and understanding during this difficult time.

There is just one week to go before the release of Steve Reich's Double Sextet and 2x5. Until then, you can listen to the album streaming in its entirety as an NPR First Listen. "Reich's innovations across the decades seem to have been distilled and polished to a sheen not heard in his music before now," says NPR of Double Sextet. "[W]hat makes every new Reich recording an opportunity to uncover new mysteries is his continued willingness, as with the rock idiom of 2x5, to shift gears and change direction. He makes it easy to want to follow him on a wild, joyful ride."

Pat Metheny follows last spring's worldwide Orchestrion Tour with an additional 19 North American performance halls beginning October 1. He has performed shows to sold-out audiences in some of the world’s best-known halls, including two sold-out nights at New York City’s Town Hall. London’s Telegraph calls the show “a triumph,” while the Kansas City Star says, “Metheny’s Orchestrion is nothing short of spectacular ... Endlessly fascinating and visually dazzling.”

With AfroCubism due out in just over a month, National Geographic has an exclusive music preview, streaming the album track "Al vaivén de mi carreta." The album and band are the cover story of the October issue of Songlines. "It's a quite superb coming together of Cuban and Malian traditions to create something that sounds excitingly fresh and new," says writer Nigel Williamson. "There was a genuine creative tension between the tightly structured approach of the Cubans and the looser, more improvisational attitude of the Malians. And it's perhaps this tension that makes it such an exciting album."

"The Comet Song," the new song from Björk, is now available exclusively as a digital download from iTunes.  All the artist and record label proceeds from sales of the track sales will be donated to UNICEF to support their efforts to aid children in Pakistan. Björk wrote and performed "The Comet Song" for the new, animated Finnish children's film Moomins and the Comet Chase.