Robert Plant's Digging Deep podcast has returned for its fourth season. He and co-host Matt Everitt pick up their conversation on the season opener with "Bluebirds Over the Mountain," a song written and recorded by Ersel Hickey in 1958 and made a hit by Ritchie Valens that same year. Plant recorded a version for his 2017 Nonesuch album, Carry Fire, with guest vocalist Chrissie Hynde. You can hear the podcast episode and watch the video for Plant's take on the song here.

Laurie Anderson is on the Talk Art podcast to talk with hosts Russell Tovey and Robert Diament about her music and art. "She's just constantly inspired and constantly experimenting and expressing all these things throughout her work—beauty, time, reality, memory," says Tovey. "She does that constantly, and that is why I think she's such an important, critical artist." You can hear their conversation here.

Laurie Anderson performed an NPR Tiny Desk (Home) Concert of music from Big Science, "the truly breathtaking breakthrough album" from this "revolutionary artist," says host Bob Boilen. She was joined, on synthesizer, by Roma Baran, who performs on and co-produced Big Science with Anderson, and Rubin Kodheli on cello to perform "Let x=x," "O Superman (For Massenet)," and an improvisation on violin and cello. You can watch it here.

Lake Street Dive was on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform "Same Old News," from the album, Obviously; you can watch the performance here. As Lake Street Dive's June concerts in upstate New York and New Haven will be Mike "McDuck" Olson's last shows with the band, these special dates will stream live via Mandolin. The band also has several shows this summer, including newly announced dates at SummerStage in NYC and Ravinia outside Chicago.

The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are on the latest episode of NPR's Here & Now, from WBUR in Boston. They talk with Peter O'Dowd about their new album, Delta Kream, which celebrates the band’s roots, featuring eleven Mississippi hill country blues standards they've loved since they were teenagers, including songs by R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others. You can hear their conversation here.

k.d. lang "gave voice and groove to the moment," writes Larry Flick, Billboard dance music editor from 1990 to 1998, in this Nonesuch Journal essay. Ahead of the release of makeover, the new collection of classic remixes of some of lang's best-loved songs, he reflects on her role in the time and place in which the tracks were first released, from 1992 to 2000. You can read what he had to say here.

Chris Thile was on WNPR's Audacious with Chion Wolf. "I’ve been following his work for over 10 years," says Wolf, "simultaneously singin’ my heart out to his recordings, while being totally mind-boggled at his mandolin playing." You can hear their conversation about his music, what makes Bach a musical "truth north," and more here.

The Black Keys celebrated the release of their new album, Delta Kream, with two TV performances: on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, they played "Crawling Kingsnake," plus a web exclusive of R. L. Burnside's "Going Down South," from Mississippi at Jimmy Duck Holmes’ Blue Front Café, the oldest active juke joint in America; on Later... with Jools Holland, they performed "Going Down South" from Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, where they recorded the album. The performances feature Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton, long-time members of the bands of blues legends including Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. You can watch them here.

The Black Keys' Delta Kream is out today on Nonesuch Records. The album celebrates the band’s roots and features eleven Mississippi hill country blues songs by R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney recorded Delta Kream at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville. The album takes its name from William Eggleston’s iconic Mississippi photograph that is on its cover. The band performs on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and on Later… with Jools Holland tonight.

Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion have released the title track to their forthcoming album, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, due June 25, as well as a video for the track made by Shaw, which you can watch here. Shaw says of the track, a duet with Sō's Josh Quillen: "Josh is an amazing steel pan player. I wrote out these odd little chords and said, ‘Here’s essentially a kind of verse and a kind of chorus. Otherwise, we’re loose. Here’s the harmonic progression.’ An hour before, I went into a free writing zone, very much inspired by James Joyce."

After a year’s hiatus, Kronos Performing Arts Association’s Kronos Festival returns June 11–18, expanding the annual San Francisco–based event into the virtual sphere with free online presentations: world premieres; many of Kronos’ signature works, including music by Clint Mansell, George Crumb, Frank Zappa, Terry Riley, and Vladimir Martynov; and pieces commissioned for Kronos’ Fifty for the Future project. The festival also features an all-ages program and a series of short films. Kronos will also headline composer Ellen Reid’s Soundwalk, a self-guided, GPS-enabled public art work, in Golden Gate Park.

Pianist/composer Tigran Hamasyan releases "Revisiting the Film," featuring drummer/composer Morgan Ågren, today on Nonesuch. You can hear it here. The new single is a variation on "Our Film," a track from his 2020 album, The Call Within. "For years I have been a big fan of Morgan and finally had a chance to collaborate," Hamasyan says. "I hope this is going to be the beginning of our dialogue."