Amadou & Mariam's latest album, Welcome to Mali, is set for US release on Nonesuch tomorrow. The duo is the subject of a number of feature-length articles about changing perceptions in the West of African musics beyond "world music." The New York Times places them "among the world’s most renowned African musical acts" and says the new album is "less an abandonment of the group’s culture than an updating of it." The Los Angeles Times cites the success of Amadou & Mariam, who "helped define the current African shift," and of Youssou N'Dour, Oumou Sangare, and Rokia Traoré, as examples that "the American cliché of African music is falling apart—or, really, exploding." Detroit Free-Press gives Welcome to Mali four stars, calling it "a spirited invitation to dance away those recession-induced blues and welcome spring ... This is a feel-good album. Don't miss it."

Ashes of American Flags, the film presenting Wilco live in concert during their 2008 tour, is due out in the Nonesuch Store and in limited release on April 18, and is now available for pre-order. Culled from concerts in Tulsa, New Orleans, Mobile, Nashville, and DC, the film, produced and directed by Christoph Green and Fugazi’s Brendan Canty, captures the energy, poignancy, and musicality of a Wilco concert and tour. Orders placed in the Nonesuch Store before April 28, the date of the film's wide release, include a free video download of the band's live performance of "Monday" from the film, available beginning the 18th. The winner for Best Cinematography at the Big Sky Film Festival, the film has been selected to play at a number of upcoming film festivals and special screenings to coincide with its DVD release.

Afro-Cuban All Stars spread their energetic sound through the Midwest ... ENO production of Adams's Doctor Atomic comes to a close; Graz, Giessen, and San Fran ballets dance on to Adams ... Dan Auerbach plays two more "raw and rumbling" sets at SxSW ... Isabel Bayrakdarian performs Gomidas songs at Art Song Festival benefit ... David Byrne brings Eno/Byrne songs to Sweden ... Toumani Diabaté plays Yoshi's with Béla Fleck ... Bill Frisell, Greg Leisz tour North Carolina ... Philip Glass revisits Tibetan refugee project with Foday Musa Suso ... Richard Goode performs Beethoven's "Emperor" with Saint Louis ... k.d. lang plays Pacific Northwest ... Brad Mehldau goes Dutch in solo set ... Joshua Redman Trio takes over Ronnie Scott's London ... Spokane Symphony takes Reich, Marshall music to The Knitting Factory ... Sara Watkins joins brother Sean at Largo ... and more ...

Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, the film documenting the creation of Youssou's 2004 Grammy-winning album, Egypt, recently completed its theatrical run in the Netherlands and will open in theaters in Belgium on March 25. The film, already the winner of a number of international film festival awards, from the Middle East to Brazil, made its US premiere earlier this week at the South by Southwest Film Festival, where it is an Official Selection; the final SxSW festival screening will take place Saturday night. In the next few months, the film will premiere at many film festivals in both the US and Europe. 

Rokia Traoré, Toumani Diabaté, and Amadou & Mariam have all been nominated for the inaugural Songlines Music Awards, recognizing outstanding talent in world music. Diabaté and Traoré are each nominated for Best Artist, Amadou & Mariam for Best Group. Winners will be chosen by the Songlines editorial team and announced in May. The WOMAD festival, the Awards' co-presenter, will host a live event with a selection of the nominees at WOMAD Charlton Park in July, where Traoré and label mate Oumou Sangare are scheduled to perform.

Dan Auerbach, fresh off his two-week tour with Hacienda and Those Darlins, helped kick off Austin's South by Southwest Music Conference last night with an opening-night set at The Parish. The first reports are in, and the show seems to be the hit of a typically jam-packed SxSW night. MTV includes the "raw and rumbling set" among the night's highlights, and JamBase says, "The top pick for the first night was undoubtedly Dan Auerbach ... [I]t took all of one song to realize this was something special." The Dallas Observer calls Dan's solo debut, Keep It Hid, "an intimate trek down gravel roads and back alleys to the crossroads of American music."

Isabel Bayrakdarian will perform songs from her Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, celebrating the work of composer Gomidas Vardabet, at Ohio's Baldwin-Wallace College, tomorrow night, to benefit the school's Art Song Festival. "The Lebanon-born Canadian soprano of Armenian heritage has proved herself on the international operatic and recital stage, where her lustrous voice and expressive urgency are winning increasing approbation," says the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. "I think these songs are in the psyche of all Armenians," Bayrakdarian says of the Gomidas works. "In many ways, when I sing them ... they come from a part of me that is very different from when I sing any other repertoire."

Emmylou Harris and Kate and Anna McGarrigle will be among the artists celebrating the legendary singer-songwriter Pete Seeger, in honor of his 90th birthday, at a special Madison Square Garden concert event, Sunday, May 3. All proceeds will go to the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, the organization Seeger co-founded in 1966 to fight pollution on New York's longest river. Also on stage will be the honoree himself, along with a diverse line-up of artists, including Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Joan Baez, Ani DiFranco, Steve Earle, Ben Harper, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and many more.

"Composer, pianist and living legend Allen Toussaint has helped shape the sound of R&B, soul and funk while infusing a little bit of New Orleans into it," says KCRW in naming as yesterday's Top Tune the Thelonius Monk–penned title track of Toussaint's forthcoming Nonesuch solo debut, The Bright Mississippi. Toussaint will perform during both weeks of the 40th anniversary New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which runs April 24–30 and May 1–3. Given his prominent place in the festival and the city's musical history, it's no surprise that Toussaint has made his way onto the official JazzFest 2009 poster, by artist James Michalopoulos.

In 2004, Ry Cooder commissioned San Antonio artist Vincent Valdez to paint a mural, on a refurbished 1953 Chevy ice cream truck, inspired by the LA Chicano community of Chávez Ravine, whose neighborhood was razed to make way for Dodger Stadium. The community is the subject of Cooder's 2004 album Chávez Ravine. The truck also took the name El Chávez Ravine and is now at the center of a special exhibit at the San Antonio Museum of Art.

In an interview on ABC's World News webcast, Amadou & Mariam discuss having met at Mali's Institute for Young Blind People more than 30 years ago and explain the central role of music in their relationship's success. Also featured on ABC's site is a Pitchfork video review of the duo's new album. "Welcome to Mali is a brilliantly eclectic album," says reviewer Joe Tangari. "They have it all, really ... This is the kind of album that makes you feel more connected to the world you live in." "It’s hard to go wrong with Amadou and Mariam," concurs Dusted magazine. "[They] make great pop music, and their new album gives us more of it." The Boston Herald gives it an A.

Dan Auerbach was the featured guest on yesterday's episode of KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. Dan and band perform more than half the songs off his recent Nonesuch solo debut, Keep It Hid, live in the KCRW studios. At the end of the set, the show's host, Jason Bentley, sighs, "Man, you got some soul, brother." His favorite album tracks, he says, "really caught my attention as just soulful blues-rock of the highest order."