Thousands of music, film, and new-media types from across the world are converging on Austin, Texas, this week for SXSW. Among the participating artists will be Steve Reich, whose music will be performed with that of John Adams's at a showcase tomorrow night, and who will join Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore for a discussion the following afternoon; and The Black Keys, who will perform late-night tomorrow and at the Village Voice party on Friday. Next week, David Simon, the creator of The Wire, will speak at the University of Texas.

Tune in to Seattle public radio station KEXP, 90.3 FM, today at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET, to hear an in-studio performance from and conversation with Stephin Merritt. The Magnetic Fields were in Seattle last week to play two nights at Town Hall; they'll close out their Distortion tour with three nights---six shows---at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music this weekend.

The Washington Post has reviewed a handful of notable new albums by artists with "the makeup of a chamber ensemble, the mind-set of a rock band"---the sort for which "Kronos Quartet paved the way." Kronos's latest, The Cusp of Magic, is "at turns luminous, frightening and unbearably lovely." It's music that "shimmers with the elusive delicacy of a dream ...  and evokes those transitional moments in life when the sharp edges of reality become blurred, and anything seems possible."