Head over to Stereogum to download a brand-new track from The Black Keys: their cover of Captain Beefheart's "I'm Glad." It's not on their new album, Attack & Release, as it was recorded just yesterday at Dan's house, but Stereogum says: "We're digging it ... good times, indeed."

On his Nonesuch debut, Into the Blue, Nicholas Payton offers a unique rendition of "Chinatown" that Jazz.com names Song of the Day, citing Payton's "creating a sensuously delicious mood of sultry, slow-steamed blues blended with the mystery of a Raymond Chandler novel. The site recently named the Brad Mehldau Trio's version of Ray Noble's "The Very Thought of You," from the new Live CD, a Song of the Day as well.

Steve Reich stopped by the WNYC studios yesterday to discuss his new album, Daniel Variations, and the creation of its title piece, on The Leonard Lopate Show. You can download an MP3 of the segment at wnyc.org or listen to it in its entirety here.

Youssou N'Dour was in Washington, DC, last Friday for a meeting at the White House with President Bush in honor of Malaria Awareness Day. Reuters reports that the two discussed the recent rise in the cost of food around the world and the resulting political instability, both of which have made the world's poorest all the more susceptible to malaria-causing conditions. Youssou is working to raise both awareness and the funds to eradicate the disease in part through such simple, cheap, and highly effective means as mosquito netting. Following his meetings in Washington during the day, Youssou made his way to New York City for an intimate benefit concert at Joe's Pub Friday night. 

"You can quickly run out of adjectives to describe k.d. lang," writes the Adelaide Advertiser, "powerful, soulful, sensual, lush, velvet, joyous---and that's just her voice." In a four-star review of k.d.'s show in Adelaide last Saturday, the Advertiser says, "Quite frankly, Ms. lang could sing the classifieds section and it would sound beautiful." The Brisbane Courier Mail calls Watershed "her best album of original material in years" and found k.d. "in sensational form" at her recent concert there.