This week, a Nobel Prize-winner’s “Stardust,” a tale of artificial intelligence, and a cosmic cannibal. Bob Dylan’s Triplicate Offers New Takes On Old Classics Big week for the up-and-coming singer/songwriter named Bob Dylan. First, he graciously agreed to meet with the committee members of the Nobel Prize For Literature in private so they could bestow one of the world’s greatest honors upon his reluctant self; he was in town for two Stockholm concerts this weekend anyway and I guess it seemed like a good way to pass a few minutes offstage. But he also released his latest album of standards – a triple-CD set called Triplicate. It is full of classic songs of the mid-20th century by Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern and the like. We’d heard an early track a few months ago, but now Dylan and his incredibly versatile band can be heard in their full splendor. I’ve always loved Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” but let’s face it, the song’s been recorded hundreds of times and you’d think the last thing we needed was another version. But Dylan gives it a kind of 1930s gypsy jazz feel that makes the song shine again.  Watch Jonathan Coulton’s Brilliant New Video, Twice How do you know Jonathan Coulton?  As the one-man band for the NPR quiz show Ask Me Another? As the guy who famously recorded a new song every week (Thing A Week, 2005/06)? As the sidekick to comedian John Hodgman, the “resident expert” at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Coulton’s music has always been fun and nerdy, with a strong storytelling instinct. That instinct comes to the fore in his new album, Solid State, which comes out on April 28. It’s linked to a new graphic novel by author Matt Fraction and illustrator Albert Monteys, and tells a story of artificial intelligence and real human connection. Coulton’s first single, “All This Time,” is out, and Coulton created a remarkable dual-narrative video for it – though the story on the screen and the lyrics of the song do mesh for one brief, moving episode.   A Tribe Called Quest Offers “Dis Generation” Video 2016 was a year of extremes for fans of A Tribe Called Quest. First came the death of one of the band’s two MCs, Phife Dawg, in March, from complications of diabetes. But then came the release of We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service – the reunion album they had been secretly working on before Phife Dawg passed away. Not only that, but the album turned out to be vintage ATCQ – sharp and funny and scalding in ways that now seem prescient (the line “all you Mexicans, you must go” from “We The People,” for example). Q Tip, the remaining MC, has suggested the band would tour behind this album (they played with Anderson.Paak at the Grammy Awards) and then pack it in. For the moment, though, they show no signs of slowing down: the band is headlining this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival and has just collaborated with director Hiro Murai, who has worked on the music-themed TV series Atlanta, on a new video for the song “Dis Generation.” It’s got a couple of impressively long tracking shots, which occasionally merge with the rapping on the song in a way that seems to echo both the group’s ambition and its sense of play.   An All-Star Look At The Planets In 2013, singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, composer/arranger/keyboardist Nico Muhly, and guitarist/composer Bryce Dessner of The National brought their collaborative project Planetarium to BAM. It was a major gathering of talent, as all three musicians are central players in the vibrant intersection of contemporary classical music and indie rock. Now, they are finally announcing an album version of Planetarium, completely revised and including the drummer James McAlister (who has often played in Stevens’ band). The quartet also released the song “Saturn,” and its accompanying video – one part lyric video and one part psychedelic freakout. The song is startling, both for Sufjan’s almost unrecognizable processed vocals and his startling lyrics – full of references to cannibalism, misfortune and evil, all set to a headlong rush of electronic dance music. It’s both irresistible and disturbing… in a way that seems to nod to Goya’s famous painting, Saturn Devouring His Children. Expect similar bits of cosmic misdirection when the full song cycle comes out on June 9.  Old Weird America Lives Again In Hite’s New Album The singer and songwriter Hite has just released her debut album, Light Of A Strange Day, and while her music reflects her love of Björk and Radiohead, it also has deep roots in American folk music, especially the dark side that music critic Greil Marcus called “The Old Weird America.” Hite is the nom de disque of Julia Easterlin, whose album with Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Toure, called Touristes, was a lovely mix of desert blues and her own arty, looped vocals. As Hite, though, she sometimes favors older imagery, as in the song “Old Crow.” The crow is often a symbol of misfortune in British and Appalachian folk songs, and Hite, who grew up in Georgia, uses it as a metaphor for heartache as she sings what sounds like a very old melody over a drone. But furtive voices around the edges of the mix later in the song give it an eerie, haunted effect.  Hite is performing at C’mon Everybody in Brooklyn on April 7. Don’t Tell Diet Cig To Calm Down Diet Cig is a duo from New Paltz, NY who play a fun, breezy kind of punk, which actually enhances the empowering message they often deliver. Swear I’m Good At This is their debut album, although they’ve been releasing singles and playing around the area since at least 2015. The album comes out on Friday and the song “Link In Bio” is already available. Here, and in quite a few of their new songs, singer/guitarist Alex Luciano offers her own response to the persistence of gender roles – especially how women are not allowed to express themselves in all the ways a man can. “Don’t. Tell. Me. To. Calm. Down.” she intones during the song’s bridge, before resuming her attack on her guitar’s six strings while Noah Bowman gleefully pummels his drumkit behind her. Diet Cig plays two sold-out shows, early with Daddy Issues, late with T-Rextasy at Baby's All Right this Friday night (4/7).