Vampire Weekend‘s White Sky single gets released as a 12-inch with three remixes. The song is from their 2010 album Contra, which received numerous year-end accolades, including a No. 1 spot from New York Magazine, No. 4 from Jon Pareles at The New York Times, No. 6 from Rolling Stone and many more.

Track list:

1. White Sky
2. White Sky (Cecile Remix)
3. White Sky (New Look Remix)
4. White Sky (Basement Jazz Club Mix)

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

Against Me! Total Clarity
Black Tusk Passage Through Purgatory
Bootsy Collins Tha Funk Capital of the World
Felice Brothers Celebration Florida
Foster the People Torches
Various Artists Nigeria 70 3: Sweet Times Afro-funk, Highlife and Juju from 1970s Lagos
She Wants Revenge Valleyheart
Boris Attention Please
The Cramps Stay Sick!
Daedelus Bespoke
The Devil Wears Prada Plagues
Thurston Moore Demolished Thoughts
Santana Moonflower
Teenage Fanclub Thirteen
Amon Tobin Isam

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First things first: If my bootleg Hank III collection (what, you don’t have one?) is to be believed, a large percentage—80%, to be exact—of the tracks on Hillbilly Joker have been floating around the interwebs in a quasi-legal status since 2003 under the album title This Ain’t Country. (Some tracks also appear on III Shades of Hank; use this information however you’d like.) That said, even with a new moniker, the old This Ain’t Country is a pretty apt title—as Williams fans who dig his hard rock side project, Assjack, know, there’s more to the man than his souped-up, hellbound take on his grandfather’s genre. Hillbilly Joker splits the difference between Hank III proper and Assjack, and as a result, will either offer something for both sets of fans or disappoint them, depending on your level of cynicism.

The Hank III thematic elements are in place, even if the sound isn’t. The hard rock attack and more guttural vocals may turn off those who prefer their Hank twangy, nasal, and surrounded by steel guitars and fiddles, though even the haters may be surprised by how fluid Williams’s voice is on a tune like “10 Feet Down,” twisting from cookie monster growl to swagger to croak on a syllable, as if possessed by a demon; he makes Jello Biafra sound like Calvin Johnson. — PopMatters

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

Deftones Around the Fur
Girls Names Dead to Me
The Go-Go’s Beauty and the Beat 30th Anniversary
Moby Destroyed
Alexander Turnquist Hallway of Mirrors
Wild Beasts Smother

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In 1994, Johnny Cash released American Recordings, his first team-up with Rick Rubin, the producer who continued to work beside him until Cash’s 2003 death. Their American albums gave Cash spare, sympathetic production and first-rate material, burnishing his status as an American legend. The collaboration began as a spirited act of professional revitalization, but as their decade together progressed, Cash’s health declined and the work’s focus turned ever more intently toward final things.

American VI: Ain’t No Grave arrives billed as the last fruit of that pairing. It’s drawn largely from the same sessions that produced American V: A Hundred Highways and recorded at least partly after the death of Cash’s wife, June Carter Cash, as his sight dimmed and his own body failed him for the last time. It’s no surprise that Ain’t No Grave is focused on death and loss. But as usual, Cash uses his Christian faith as the ultimate rebuttal to life’s disappointments. “Ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down,” Cash sings, as the musical setting of the traditional title track sounds ominous tones. Hope was his last act of defiance.

The 10 songs on American VI find Cash sounding frail but determined, and the material doesn’t let him down. The one original, “I Corinthians 15:55,” uses a Bible verse (“Oh death, where is thy sting?”) to set the tone for the album: This isn’t ultimately about tearful goodbyes, but welcome departures and happy endings. Tom Paxton’s “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound” finds a lifelong wanderer contemplating the end of the road, and “I Don’t Hurt Anymore” imagines a life without anguish. A cover of Queen Lili’uokalani’s famous Hawaiian farewell “Aloha Oe” may seem like an odd choice for the last song of Cash’s proper recorded career, but he turns it into an apt summary of what’s come before, a fond remembrance of life’s pleasures from past the point of earthly cares. Cash is gone now. Aloha means goodbye. But it also means love, mercy, and compassion, all values he treasured. And in this context, it has another meaning found in the last words on the album, and delivered with all the conviction he could summon: “Until we meet again.”-avclub

OTHER NEW VINYL

Manchester Orchestra, Simple Math
Okkervil River, I Am Very Far
Antlers, Burst Apart
Cars, Move Like This
Hank Williams, Hank Williams-Timeless
Robbie Robertson, How To Be Clairvoyant
Johnny Winter, Still Alive & Well
Man Man, Life Fantastic
Metallica, S&M
Zombi, Escape Velocity
Sea & Cake, Moonlight Butterfly
AND MORE!

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Culled from two incredible sold-out shows in November 2010 at the prestigious Seattle concert venue, Brandi Carlile – Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony features the acclaimed singer-songwriter-performer and her band — Tim Hanseroth (guitar), Phil Hanseroth (bass), Josh Neumann (cello) and Allison Miller (drums) — performing a finely drawn selection of original songs and well-chosen covers accompanied by a full thirty-piece orchestra.

Brandi Carlile – Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony showcases arrangements created for Brandi by Sean O’Loughlin (who’s worked with Chris Isaak, Feist, Belle & Sebastian, Blue Man Group, others) and the legendary Paul Buckmaster (Elton John, David Bowie-”Space Oddity,” Miles Davis-”On The Corner”). Buckmaster, who won a Grammy in 2001 for his arrangements on Train’s “Drops of Jupiter,” first worked with Brandi in 2009 on Give Up The Ghost, her third studio album.

Brandi Carlile, winner of Seattle’s City of Music Breakthrough Award for 2010, sold-out her Benaroya debut in 2008. Returning to the Hall for the first time last November, after touring more than a year in support of Give Up The Ghost, Carlile treated her fans to an expanded road-polished repertoire, performing an exquisite set-list of original compositions and covers including Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” and Elton John’s “Sixty Years On. -Amazon

OTHER RX VINYL RECOMMENDATIONS:

Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues
Hollies, Beat Group
Hollies, Bus Stop
Radio Dept. Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002-10

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With their reverb-drenched, melancholic guitars and somnolent rhythms, Dylan Carson’s revived Earth always seemed the perfect audio accompaniment to a photographic journey through America’s hinterland. But while the band’s last release, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, hymned sweeping expanses and giant skies, this, their sixth studio album, has a more claustrophobic, funereal feel – Robert Frank rather than Ansel Adams, perhaps. The addition of Lori Goldston’s cello – her stringed hum a nod to Carson’s drone-metal past – is the defining factor, bringing depth, substance and emotion to an already rich mix, particularly on the chilling and beautiful Father Midnight. This is Earth’s best-realised work to date – stunning stuff.-Guardian

OTHER NEW RX VINYL:

Explosions In The Sky, Take Care Take Care Take Care
Of Montreal, Controller Sphere
Green Day Awesome As F**k
Jefferson Airplane, Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (Greatest Hits)
Sleigh Bells, Treats
Thao & Mirah, Thao & Mirah
Dennis Coffey, Dennis Coffey
T.Rex, Tanx
Holly Golightly The Brokeoffs, No Help Coming
Prefuse 73, Only She Chapters
Silverstein, Rescue
Swingin’ Utters, Here Under Protest
Times New Viking, Dancer Equired