The Carolina Chocolate Drops begin their two-month tour this weekend with a performance each weekend night: at the Melting Pot in Athens, Georgia, tonight; the McCelvey Center in York, South Carolina, Saturday; and the Pourhouse in Charleston, South Carolina, on Sunday. "What they do requires skill, knowledge, and a healthy dose of inspired, collective creativity," says the Charleston City Paper in a preview of Sunday's show.

To mark the start of the tour in the States, the band's forthcoming Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, is now available for pre-order in the US at nonesuch.com. Customers ordering through the Nonesuch Store will receive the album both on CD and as audiophile-quality, 320 kbps MP3s, available on the US release date, February 23 [now February 16]. In addition, with those MP3s will be a full seven Nonesuch Store-exclusive bonus tracks, all recorded before a live audience at Santa Monica's famed Village Recorder studio in November. For a complete list of the tracks and to pre-order the album now, click here.

What's more, there's still just one day left in the Nonesuch Store Anniversary Sale, with 33 1/3% off all LPs, DVDs, and CDs, including Genuine Negro Jig, through 12 AM PT tonight.

There's much more to come in both the States and in the UK, where The Strand, the BBC World Service's flagship arts program, recently included the band in its predictions for "great art and artists in 2010," and the album track "Hit 'Em Up Style" was both featured on the BBC 6 Music Roundtable and is up for the station's listener-chosen "rebel" playlist. (You can place your vote at bbc.co.uk.) The tour kicks off there at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, for Scotland's Celtic Connections festival, on January 26, just one day after the UK release of Genuine Negro Jig.

You can catch a video preview of the new album, capturing live performances and interviews with the band, at nonesuch.com/media. For more tour information, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.