Jack White has unveiled a special vinyl ‘Ultra’ version of his forthcoming new album, Lazaretto.
The 180 gram release will feature two vinyl-only hidden tracks, which will be situated under the labels on the record, with one playing at 78 rpm and one at 45 rpm, making the release a three speed album.
The mix of the album will also be different from the digital and CD release and have a different running order. Click below to watch White talk through the LP alongside Ben Blackwell of Third Man Records, who says the record has “all kinds of tricks and chicanery hidden inside of it”. The album is released on June 9.
“While we were mixing the record I started to get ideas about the design of the LP and what we could do differently that hadn’t been done before,” says White, before demonstrating how Side A of the record plays from the inside out before a locked groove on the outside of the record continually plays.
White explains that his favourite feature of the album is on Side B, where depending on where the needle is dropped, listeners will either hear an acoustic or an electric introduction to the first song. “Both of those intros, acoustic and electric, all come together in the middle of the song and become one groove for the remainder of the song. This is something that’s never been done before,” says White.
In the dead wax of Side A is a hand-etched hologram of an angel by Tristan Duke of Infinity Light Science. “This is a really beautiful component to the Ultra LP,” says White.