The Magnetic Fields bring 50 Song Memoir back to New York City over two nights at the Apollo Theater tonight and Saturday (songs 1–25 on night one, songs 26–50 on night two). The stage extravaganza, directed by José Zayas, heads to Pittsburgh and Toronto next week. Stephin Merritt and bandmate/ manager Claudia Gonson took the New Yorker out to their prop shop to look things over ahead of this weekend’s shows; you can read what happened in the Talk of the Town here. Also in the New Yorker, Goings on About Town says that Merritt’s melodies “are so richly crafted that their catchiness is seductive.”

The five-disc 50 Song Memoir was released on Nonesuch last year to critical acclaim. “Fifty songs, one for every year of a life? In Stephin Merritt's hands it's revelatory,” says Mojo, “Taking in cartoon pop, disco, indie and beyond, the songwriting's up there with Randy Newman.”

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Devendra Banhart continues his tour of Asia with his longtime collaborator Noah Georgeson at Siam Motors Auditorium in Bankok, Thailand, on Saturday. The South China Morning Post writes that “the boundaries of Banhart’s art seem limitless.”

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Tyondai Braxton plays the Diana Wortham Theatre in Asheville, North Carolina, tonight, as part of the Making Noise 10 Year Celebration. HIVE1, Braxton's Nonesuch debut album, was released in 2015, with Q magazine calling it "a sonically absorbing experience."

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David Byrne began a sold-out UK leg of his American Utopia world tour in Oxford yesterday, continuing with shows at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall tonight and Birmingham Symphony Hall on Sunday. Laura Mvula joins as special guest throughout the UK tour. Tickets for Byrne’s newly announced autumn arena tour of the UK and Ireland are on sale now.

The Calgary Herald calls the show “one of the most inspired, intriguing, energetic and joyful concerts in recent memory … to call it unique hardly does it justice.” Rolling Stone includes American Utopia in its list of “50 Best Albums of 2018 So Far,” calling it “some of the most exciting music Byrne has made in years.”

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Rhiannon Giddens continues her spring US tour in the Northeast this weekend, with a concert at Boarding House Park in Lowell, Massachusetts, tonight, as part of the Lowell Summer Music Series, followed by a free Summerstage set at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield in Manhattan on Saturday, and a performance at Croton Point Park in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, on Sunday, as part of Clearwater's Great Hudson River Revival.

"Few people make recasting long-overlooked parts of American musical history more fun than Rhiannon Giddens, a singer, songwriter, banjoist and fiddler whose work is usually characterized as Americana or folk," says the New York Times listing of concerts to check out this weekend. Giddens "takes an aesthetic that's long been the stuff of museum archives and makes it sound vibrant, danceable and brand-new." The title track to her latest album, Freedom Highway, was featured on WNYC this morning as part of New Sounds' Gig Alert recommending the Clearwater Festival.

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Kronos Quartet is at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam this weekend, performing the multimedia work Sight Machine, with visual artist Trevor Paglen, in Muziekgebouw‘s main hall tonight. While Kronos performs works by Laurie Anderson, Steve Reich, George Crumb, Terry Riley, George Gershwin, and others, a live video feed of the performance is processed in real time through surveillance AI algorithms, and the resulting data images are projected on a screen above.

On Sunday, the quartet presents Kronos Sessions, an all-day mini-festival of events at the Muziekgebouw and the Bimhuis, including concerts with Kronos and friends, masterclasses with members of Kronos, film screenings, and more. The evening concludes back at Muziekgebouw in a performance with the Malian ensemble Trio Da Kali.

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Robert Plant and his band the Sensational Space Shifters continue their North American Carry Fire tour with concerts at the Budweiser Stage in Toronto tonight and Millennium Park Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago on Sunday.

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Rostam concludes his European tour at Donnybrook Stadium in Dublin on Saturday afternoon, performing as a special guest of The National. He was on BBC Radio 6 Music yesterday to talk with Lauren Laverne and perform from his debut album, Half-Light. "One of my favorite records of 2017," she says, "absolutely phenomenal." He also offers his take on Nick Drake's "Pink Moon." Listen to the session here.

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Chris Thile is in California this weekend, hosting his public radio show Live From Here from Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery in Woodinville, California, on Saturday, with special guests Ben Folds, Wye Oak, and comedian Dave Hill. Gaby Moreno joins Thile as his duet partner. Folks in the US can tune in on their favorite public radio station this weekend, and fans around the world can watch live online at livefromhere.org starting at 2:45 PM PT. Thile then heads to the California Center for the Arts in Escondido for a solo performance on Sunday.

As announced yesterday in the Nonesuch Journal, Thile and his fellow Punch Brothers will release a new album, All Ashore, in July. "It's a meditation on committed relationships in the present day," says Thile, "particularly in the present climate." All Ashore is available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store now with an instant download of two songs and an exclusive, autographed print.