With less than a month to go before 2013 comes to a close, music magazines have begun to weigh in on the best in music this year. Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, and Uncut have all published their lists of the Best Albums of the Year, and included among them are a number of Nonesuch releases: the latest from Emmylou Harris and Rokia Traoré and the label debut albums from Sam Amidon, Devendra Banhart, Bombino, and Iron & Wine.

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Rolling Stone's list of the 50 Best Albums of 2013 places Bombino's Nonesuch debut album, Nomad, at No. 29. "For this raw cross-cultural jam, Omara 'Bombino' Moctar—a hot-shit guitarist from Niger—hooked up with Black Key Dan Auerbach, who produced the LP with a crate-digging R&B/psych vibe," says Rolling Stone. "It's full of hypnotic fuzz, and the cosmic country of 'Tamiditine' conjures Workingman's Dead—if it'd been made in the Sahara desert." In the original, four-star Rolling Stone review of the album back in April, critic Will Hermes wrote: "A perfect match of sound and soul, the set introduces a new guitar hero, and confirms Auerbach's arrival as a roots-music producer to be reckoned with."

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Mojo has published multiple lists of its favorite records of the year. On its list of the Best World Music Albums is Rokia Traoré 's latest, Beautiful Africa, coming in at No. 5; the magazine had given the album a four-star review, saying it put the Malian-born singer/songwriter "on the African A-list."

Among the Best Americana Albums of 2013 according to Mojo are two Nonesuch albums that also earned four stars from the magazine upon their release: Old Yellow Moon, the first official collaboration from Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell since Crowell joined Harris’ Hot Band in 1975, which at No. 9; and Sam Amidon's Nonesuch debut album, Bright Sunny South, at No. 5.

Also in the Mojo year-end issue is a feature titled "The Best Thing I've Heard All Year," in which artists offer their thoughts on just that. Elvis Costello has picked Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of "Inside Llewyn Davis," a one-night-only benefit concert at New York's Town Hall in September. Showtime will air a documentary of the event next Friday, December 13.

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Q magazine's 50 Albums of the Year includes Devendra Banhart's Nonesuch debut, Mala, at No. 35, saying the singer-songwriter "wrapped quirky subject matter in his most concise and catchy songs yet." The magazine's four-star review in April called Mala a "career-best LP. This is a beautiful album that counterpoints Banharts’s boundless and surreal imagination against a newly-discovered depth and sincerity. Surprising and enthralling."

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Uncut rounds out the list of lists with several Nonesuch albums across three categories. Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell's Old Yellow Moon and Rokia Traoré's Beautiful Africa both make multiple lists, starting with the overall Best New Releases of 2013, along with Iron and Wine's Ghost on Ghost (released on 4AD in the UK), and appear elsewhere as well. Old Yellow Moon comes in at No. 5 on the list of Best Americana Albums, and Beautiful Africa is No. 2 among Best World Music Albums, a list that also includes Bombino's Nomad at No. 8. (Uncut contributor Neil Spencer names Beautiful Africa his No. 1 choice for the year.)

Uncut had named Harris and Crowell's Old Yellow Moon the Best of the Month upon its release in February, giving it an eight and calling it "a collaboration at once overdue, and worth the wait." The magazine had previously rated Beautiful Africa an eighth as well, calling it "the record fans of her explosive live shows always hoped she would make and a career highpoint."

Iron and Wine's Ghost on Ghost received a nine out of ten from Uncut back in April, dubbed "a stunner" by reviewer Bud Scoppa.