Devendra Banhart releases his Nonesuch debut, Mala, on March 12, 2013. The singer/songwriter co-produced the record with his longtime bandmate, guitarist Noah Georgeson. Spring tour dates will be announced soon. Mala may be pre-ordered now on CD and vinyl in the Nonesuch Store with: a limited-edition, autographed print; an instant download of the album track “Für Hildegard von Bingen”; and a download of the complete album available starting release day. The Mala LP is pressed on 140-gram vinyl and includes the album on CD, an additional 7” with two bonus tracks, and an exclusive poster.

The Black Keys, who are up for five awards at the 55th annual Grammy Awards, have just announced a series of special dates with The Flaming Lips for this April and May. The bands will perform at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri; CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh; Aaron's Amphitheatre at Lakewood in Atlanta; and Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The Grammy nominations and tour follow a highly successful year for the duo, whose critically acclaimed Nonesuch album, El Camino, was recently certified RIAA Platinum.

Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter have added additional dates to their upcoming tour together, making further stops this April and May across the Pacific Northwest, into Canada, and down to the US Northeast. These longtime friends will share the stage as an intimate duo, performing material spanning their vast catalogs as well as some of their favorite songs. These newly announced dates follow the nine-city first leg of the tour, which begins February 21 in Charlotte, as well as Shawn’s three-night solo residency at the Dakota in Minneapolis and her tour of Australia. 

Dr. John released his Nonesuch Records debut album, Locked Down, in April 2012 to great critical acclaim and, more recently, numerous year-end-best accolades and a Grammy nomination for Best Blues Album. Locked Down was produced by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and features a band of young musicians Auerbach hand-picked to make the album. Dr. John and the band celebrated the album's release last spring with shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The video of their BAM performance of the track "Ice Age" premiered on Rolling Stone last week. Watch it here.

Lianne La Havas, who rang in the New Year performing on Jools Holland's Hootennany on BBC Two (watch her performance of "Age" from the show here), is set to return to North America for an 18-city headlining tour starting March 17, following shows this month and next in Australia, the UK, and Ireland. Last week, La Havas was featured on NPR's daily talk show Tell Me More to discuss her debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?. "It's a great album," says NPR's Celeste Headlee. "And I recommend people go pick it up."

American singer Fontella Bass, best known for the seminal soul classic "Rescue Me," died last week at the age of 72. Recorded for Chess Records when she was 25 years old, "Rescue Me" remained on the Top 40 R&B Chart for 19 weeks in 1965. She returned to the music scene with the released of her album No Ways Tired on Nonesuch Records in 1995. Bass suffered a heart attack on December 2, 2012, and died on December 26.

As 2012 draws to a close, and the Nonesuch Journal takes a bit of a hiatus till the start of 2013, it's time to take a look back and remember all the great and diverse music made by Nonesuch artists this year. Many of these artists and their recent Nonesuch releases have made music critics' and fans' year-end best lists; several were nominated for Grammy Awards. Here is a look back.

It's been quite a wonderful year of music for which we, the staff at Nonesuch Records, are grateful as ever. We are thankful both to the artists whom we are privileged to have call Nonesuch their musical home and to the music lovers around the world who support those artists and the music they make. Stay tuned for a re-cap of all the great music we enjoyed this year to come in the Nonesuch Journal. In the meantime, we wanted to wish everyone happy holidays with the short video message here.

Patrick Carney, drummer of The Black Keys, will host Serious Boredom, an exclusive show on SiriusXMU, channel 35, featuring Carney talking about and playing his favorite independent music, new and old, as well as music from his personal collection. The show premieres this Thursday, December 20, at 8 PM ET. New episodes will debut on the first Thursday of every month beginning in January 2013. "I'm excited about the show and the opportunity to host SiriusXMU’s Serious Boredom," says Carney. "I've wanted to do a DJ gig like this for a while now and am looking forward to being on air."

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Rokia Traoré has a new album coming in the spring of 2013 on Nonesuch Records; it is the first time Nonesuch will release her record worldwide. Further details about the album and its release will be announced shortly, as will upcoming festival and tour dates. Traoré performs at the Sydney Festival in January. Pitchfork described her most recent record, 2009’s Tchamantché, as “a guitar album of a particularly understated bent ... hauntingly spare yet ridiculously well-defined, the timbre and tone of every string presented in perfect resolution.” And the BBC World Service called it “One of the best albums of the year. An absolute stunner.”

In 2005, Nonesuch released The McGarrigle Christmas Hour, in which sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle, their family—including Kate's children, Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright—and honorary family members, like Emmylou Harris, celebrated the holidays in song. That same year saw the start of a holiday tradition of live Christmas shows starring McGarrigles, Wainwrights, and many friends. The music-making continues with Rufus and Martha Wainwright’s Christmas 101, three concerts in Oakland and Los Angeles this week, featuring appearances from Harris, Maria Muldaur, and Van Dyke Parks. Proceeds go to the Kate McGarrigle Fund, which is dedicated to research for a cure for sarcoma, a rare and deadly cancer from which Kate McGarrigle passed away in 2010. 

The Black Keys are featured in an encore episode of Austin City Limits (ACL) airing Saturday, December 29, 2012, on PBS stations across the United States. The episode, which originally aired in October 2010, is a prescient indicator of things to come as the band brings raw energy and steel-belt grit to tracks from their 2010 breakout album Brothers in their ACL debut. The episode also features Sonic Youth. The Black Keys close out year with two performances at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas.