Allen Toussaint and Amadou & Mariam are featured guests on the American broadcast of the famed UK performance show Later ... with Jools Holland. The episode, which previously aired in the UK, is being shown for the first time in the US tonight on the cable arts channel Ovation TV, at 9 PM. And tune in next month to catch The Carolina Chocolate Drops on the show November 5.

 

Punch Brothers returns to Carnegie Hall for its first performance in Stern Auditorium this Friday, following the 2007 premiere of The Blind Leaving the Blind in Carnegie's Zankel Hall, the work later featured on the band's Nonesuch debut, Punch. To celebrate, Nonesuch is offering two free tickets to the show, plus a copy of the album Punch. Winners will also receive free entry into the concert's after party, courtesy of the makers of the forthcoming film about the Punch Brothers, How to Grow a Band.

Following a two-night set "stomping through songs from his fine solo debut, Keep It Hid" (New York Times) in Austin at Austin City Limits and an official ACL Aftershow, Dan Auerbach is set to begin a three-week North American tour with his band The Fast Five, beginning November 5 in Columbus, Ohio. Joining for the length of the tour are Justin Townes Earle and Jessica Lea Mayfield.

John Adams's City Noir receives its world premiere tonight in the Opening Night Concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Inaugural Gala for its new music director, Gustavo Dudamel, at Walt Disney Concert Hall. "I want to make my music an opportunity to extend myself, and my language," Adams tells the Los Angeles Times. The piece will be performed again this fall for the Philharmonic's Adams-curated West Coast, Left Coast festival.

Wilco is still in the midst of its fall tour through the United States, with a breach of the 49th Parallel for two shows in Toronto next week. Come February 2010, the tables will turn for a TransCanada tour, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, with a half dozen stops planned for south of the border. The Canadian leg beings with a free concert for the "Live City" Vancouver celebration of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Nonesuch Records will release its first album from Natalie Merchant in early 2010. The record is her first release since 2003's The House Carpenter's Daughter. Throughout her career, Merchant has had tremendous popular and critical success. Vogue has called her "one of the most successful and enduring alternative artists to emerge from the eighties—intact and uncompromised."

Alarm Will Sound will celebrate its recent Nonesuch debut, a/rhythmia, with a free album release party and listening event at New York City's (Le) Poisson Rouge on October 18. "Within three or four measures, the riot is in full swing," San Francisco Classical Voice says of the album. "This is totally engaging stuff ... tons of fun."

The world tour that followed the release of Björk's 2007 studio album, Volta, was deemed "as visually spectacular as it is musically innovative" by The Guardian. This summer, Nonesuch released Voltaic, a multimedia celebration of the tour that led NPR to describe Björk as "an artist who inspires those around her to create equal parts music and magic." Now, you can bring the magic of Voltaic home with a visually spectacular poster.

Uncut magazine celebrates its 150th issue in November with a list of the 150 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century (so far). On the list are several Nonesuch releases, including three Wilco records, Brian Wilson's SMiLE, Ry Cooder's Chávez Ravine, Emmylou Harris's Red Dirt Girl, and Scritti Politti's White Bread, Black Beer.

David Byrne, long a bike enthusiast and proponent of this auto alternative, releases Bicycle Diaries, a new book described by the Los Angeles Times as "a two-wheeled travelogue from a keen cultural observer." He also begins an eight-city panel tour—Cities, Bicycles, and the Future of Getting Around—to discuss these issues. As New York magazine explains, "If the conventional idea of the artist is as a kind of highly specialized genius, Byrne prefers to be an omnivore."

The Low Anthem closes out its European tour this week with stops in Hamburg, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Paris, before heading home to the States for Austin City Limits and an extensive US tour with Blind Pilot. And with a performance in Amsterdam this week, it's fitting that The Low Anthem is offering a free copy of its performance of Bob Dylan's "Dignity" recorded in that city when you sign up for the group's mailing list.