Björk is set to bring her live Biophilia show back to North America this spring and summer. The dates include three shows outside San Francisco and two at the Hollywood Palladium where the venues have been set to her original Biophilia specifications as audio-visual shows in an intimate, in-the-round setting. In addition to her Biophilia performances Björk will also appear at the Hollywood Bowl and at Echo Beach in Toronto, along with three festival appearances: Pitchfork Festival, Bonnaroo, and the RBC Bluesfest in Ottawa. The Biophilia Education Program for students will also come to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Carolina Chocolate Drops, whom Paul Krugman recently featured briefly in his New York Times Friday Night Music column, launch a months-long spring tour of the United States with a performance at the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville, Virginia, tonight. The extensive, nationwide tour includes shows in New York, Boston, Charlotte, San Francisco, Austin, Chicago, and more, as well as sets at festival like DelFest and ROMP.

The Black Keys begin their week-long South American tour headlining Lollapalooza Brazil ... Shawn Colvin hits the Byron Bay Bluesfest on Australia tour, as does Allen Toussaint ... Nataly Dawn plays Philadelphia and DC ... Fatoumata Diawara kicks off US tour at Berkeley ... Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell are in Maryland and North Carolina ... Lianne La Havas heads from Boulder to Minneapolis ... Brad Mehldau concludes Mehliana tour in Paris ... Sara Watkins plays the mid-Atlantic ... and more ...

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell were guests on today's episode of NPR's Fresh Air, talking with host Terry Gross about their long friendship and their new album, Old Yellow Moon. "Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell are such good solo singers," says Gross, "it's wonderful to hear them together, duetting on the new album Old Yellow Moon." Reviewing last night's show at the Beacon Theatre, the New York Times says they "reminisced, harmonized, sketched their kind of country canon and extended it to reflect on the present." Harris and Crowell "reclaimed the close harmonies they had in the 1970s, and their band was impeccable."

The CBC recently assembled a panel of its producers and hosts to compose a list of its country’s 25 greatest singers ever, selecting k.d. lang for the top spot. “Apologies to Jeff Buckley, but lang’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ is now the definitive version and everyone needs to stay away from singing it forever and ever. It will never get better than this," says the CBC. "lang sings from the gut and the heart, and it’s perfection." On April 21, lang will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame during the 42nd Annual Juno Awards; she also will perform that evening.

Nonesuch Records and Tzadik simultaneously release guitarist Pat Metheny’s recording of John Zorn’s Tap: The Book of Angels, Vol. 20 from Zorn’s Masada Book Two on May 21, 2013. This album is the first collaboration between the two artists, considered among their generation’s most innovative musicians. Besides his frequent collaborator, drummer Antonio Sanchez, Metheny plays all other instruments—guitars, sitar, tiples, bass, keyboards, orchestrionics, electronics, bandoneón, percussion, flugelhorn, and more—himself.

Fatoumata Diawara, whose debut album, Fatou, was released in North America last summer on World Circuit / Nonesuch Records, kicks off a month-long US tour with an Afropop Spectacular with Zimbabwe's Oliver Mtukudzi at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, California, on Saturday. The 13-city tour includes a two-night run in Seattle, shows in Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin, Albuquerque, El Paso, New Orleans, and sets at the Houston and Louisiana International Festivals. Diawara returns to the US later this spring to perform at Bonnaroo.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell bring their North American tour, featuring music from their new album, Old Yellow Moon, to NYC's Beacon Theatre tonight. Harris spoke with the New York Times about the album, her storied career, life on the road, and so much more. The Boston Globe writes, in a review of Saturday's show: "Old Yellow Moon collects songs old and new, cutting across honky-tonk, classic country, ballads, and hell-raisers." The artists "sound inspired by their recent reunion, and their chemistry shows ... [T]heir voices meshed seamlessly at the Orpheum, his a rangy croon, hers as ethereal as smoke rings." Listen to their recent SXSW performance for WFUV here.

Lianne La Havas kicked off her month-long North American tour last week in Dallas, followed by sold-out shows in LA, San Francisco, and Seattle and sets this week in Portland and Vancouver. The 19-city tour heads next to Boulder and on to the Midwest. While she was in LA, La Havas performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and while in Portland, she stopped by the Bing Lounge at 101.9 KINK FM to perform three songs, which you can watch here.

Tuareg guitarist, singer, and songwriter Bombino's Nonesuch debut album, Nomad, is due out next week. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it: it's streaming in full all this week as an NPR First Listen. NPR calls Bombino's pairing with producer Dan Auerbach "inspired." "The fuzzy, loose and wide-open sounds will be familiar to Black Keys fans—and totally complement the singular honey-and-sand texture of Bombino's voice," says NPR; Bombino's "sound and style are alluring on a global scale." Nomad earns four stars in Mojo and the Financial Times, which calls it "a revelation." The BBC World Service says it's “utterly, utterly fantastic.” 

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell bring their Old Yellow Moon tour to Toronto and Boston ... John Adams's The Gospel According to the Other Mary receives its French premiere ... Nataly Dawn plays two nights in Chicago ... Jeremy Denk returns to Carnegie Hall ... Lianne La Havas has sold-out shows in San Francisco and Seattle ... Kronos Quartet performs Sun Rings in Long Beach ... Brad Mehldau takes Mehliana to Scandinavia ... Natalie Merchant sings with Charlotte Symphony ... Joshua Redman plays Puerto Rico JazzFest ... Sara Watkins tours Northeast ... and more ...

Iron and Wine, whose Nonesuch Records debut album, Ghost on Ghost, is due out on April 16, hit SXSW last week, performing at several showcases throughout Austin. One such set was at the SXSW Radio Day Stage, where Sam Beam and band performed songs from the new album and more. You can now listen to the entire set, including "Grace for Saints and Ramblers" and "Winter Prayers" from Ghost on Ghost, streaming here via WFUV.