Ry Cooder's new album, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, is out tomorrow on CD on Nonesuch / Perro Verde Records, with the vinyl release to follow on September 13. The album, to which Uncut gives a perfect five stars, calling it "one of his best albums ever," is available to stream in full till then at Slate. Cooder will celebrate the record's release with two sold-out shows at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall this Wednesday and Thursday. In advance of this week's events, he spoke with San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Joshua Zucker with details on the inspiration behind the new album, its "call to action," as it were, and what to expect from the back-to-back Music Hall concerts, at which he'll be joined by a 17-piece band that includes accordionist Flaco Jiménez, who also performs on the record.

"Ry Cooder's career has spanned five decades with the only stylistic constant being exploration and change," Zucker writes in the Chronicle. "He came to prominence as a session guitarist in the '60s working with the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart, Taj Mahal and many others. Since then he's been best known as a visionary world music pioneer and an advocate for American roots music as an indigenous form."

Read the interview to see what Cooder has to say at sfgate.com.

To listen to Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down in full, head to slate.com. To pre-order the album, head to the Nonesuch Store, where orders include an instant download of the opening track, "No Banker Left Behind," today and high-quality, 320 kbps of the complete album tomorrow.