Daughter of Swords, aka Mountain Man's Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, has announced several new summer and fall tour dates featuring songs from her recently released debut album, Dawnbreaker. The tour dates include headline concerts and shows with The Mountain Goats, Molly Tuttle, Hiss Golden Messenger, Molly Sarlé, and Sylvan Esso.

The Black Keys debuted the trailer for their "MasterCourse" via Funny or Die, where they provide secrets of their success and songwriting craft, as well as inspiration for some of their songs. In the video, directed by Bryan Schlam, Patrick Carney says, "after this course you’ll be able to write music like the pros," and Dan Auerbach adds, "unless you’re not naturally gifted like us, then we can’t really help you." You can watch it here.

Rhiannon Giddens was a guest on The Today Show on NBC this morning. She discussed her new album, there is no Other, and performed the album track "I'm on My Way" with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, who performs on the album, and bassist Jason Sypher, who joins them on tour. Watch the interview and performance here.

Gaby Moreno was on WNYC's All of It on Friday to perform a few songs, including "Across the Borderline" from her upcoming album, ¡Spangled!, and talk with host Alison Stewart; you can hear it here. Later that night, she led a multi-artist concert for Celebrate Brooklyn!, welcoming several guest artists including Jackson Browne, with whom she sang "Across the Borderline," and Oscar Isaac. They closed the show with a fitting finale of "Fare Thee Well." "Bidding the crowd farewell, their three voices rose beautifully into the Brooklyn night," says Billboard. 

¡Spangled!—a collaboration between Guatemalan-born singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno and American musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer Van Dyke Parks—is due on Nonesuch Records on October 4 (on Metamorfosis in Latin America). The ten-song set spans more than a century, including a bolero from Panama, a bossa nova from Brazil, a song by Moreno, Trinidadian songwriter David Rudder's "The Immigrants," and an elegiac ballad from the Southwest US: Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, and Jim Dickinson’s “Across the Borderline,” performed with Cooder and Jackson Browne. Pre-order to download those two songs now. 

Gaby Moreno headlines free Celebrate Brooklyn! concert … Sam Amidon performs in London … Laurie Anderson brings new VR piece to Manchester … Daughter of Swords is in Virginia … Rhiannon Giddens plays festivals in Ontario, Massachusetts … Emmylou Harris performs in Norway … Kronos Quartet is in Poland … k.d. lang launches UK Ingénue Redux tour … Robert Plant performs in UK … Punch Brothers tour Japan, Australia … Joshua Redman brings Still Dreaming to Europe … Yola tours Wisconsin with I’m With Her …

k.d. lang launches a thirteen-show tour of the UK and Ireland as part of her ongoing world tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of her acclaimed album Ingénue. Following sold-out runs in North America and Australia, the latest leg of the Ingénue Redux Tour begins in Hull, ends in Dublin, and includes London's Eventim Apollo. This is her first full UK tour in over a decade. Watch lang perform the song "Sleeping Alone" live on the US tour here.

Devendra Banhart has shared a new song from his forthcoming album, Ma: "Abre Las Manos," which translates to "Open Your Hands." The song, sung in Spanish, was inspired by Banhart's relationship with his motherland, Venezuela, and was released along with a slideshow of amateur Flickr photos of Caracas and El Avila National Park in Venezuela, which you can watch here.

Kronos Quartet’s groundbreaking 2002 collaboration with composer Terry Riley, Sun Rings, will be available in full for the first time on August 30 via Nonesuch Records. Riley incorporates into his composition "space sounds" (plasma waves) that NASA had collected from the Voyager probes, as well as a choir that represents, in his words, "the voice of humanity in its struggle to understand the meaning of our place in this unfathomable universe." Musical America calls it "a spaceship that faces ahead into the planets but also looks back toward its starting point on Earth." Pre-order to download the track "Beebopterismo" now.

Soul-singer Robert Finley will perform on America's Got Talent on NBC tonight at 8pm ET. You can watch him wow the judges—Simon Cowell included—with a performance of "Get It While You Can," from his Dan Auerbach–produced album Goin' Platinum! in a special early look at the show here.

Donnacha Dennehy's The Hunger, which explores Ireland's Great Famine, is due August 23, 2019, on Nonesuch Records. Performed by Alarm Will Sound led by Alan Pierson, soprano Katherine Manley, and sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, the libretto draws from first-hand accounts by American humanitarian Asenath Nicholson. The Hunger "bears hearing and rehearing," said the Washington Post. "It is powerful, and it makes a statement." Pre-order to download the track "Black Potatoes" now.

Congratulations to The Black Keys, whose ninth studio album, "Let's Rock," debuted at No. 1 on the US Top Current Album Chart, and No. 4 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. The album is also No. 1 in the following categories: Top Current Rock Albums, Current Alternative Album, Current Digital Albums, LP Vinyl Album, and Top Internet. Internationally, "Let's Rock" is the band's third consecutive top 10 album in the UK, debuting at No. 3, as well as top 10 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland, among others.