[ COUNTRY ]

If this were 1974, you’d wonder who needs another Phases and Stages, but a band taking on Willie Nelson’s divorce theme sounds fine right about now. Alex Madsen of Canada’s The Divorcees loves Willie so much he’s even adapted some of his trademark ornaments and phrasing to his own singing on the self-released Four Chapters (as on the drying-out song “Goodbye Jack”). —Mary Armstrong

[ DVD ]

The heart-shredding beauty of John Ford’s masterpiece bursts from the (flat-)screen in Fox’s luminescent new Blu-ray of The Grapes of Wrath. Inspired by his own memories of the Irish potato famine, Ford’s magnificent Steinbeck adaptation is somehow both sentimental and austere; it reminds you that Ireland is the land of Samuel Beckett as well as Sean O’Casey. Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland manage the unbelievable task of making Henry Fonda unrecognizable at first: His haggard, sallow face holds no trace of movie-star familiarity. The harsh light and menacing shadows split the world into temporary winners and all-time losers, with community the only way to weather the storm. —Sam Adams

[ POP/ELECTRONIC]

Peter Bjorn and John don’t rest much. It’s an off year in their album cycle, so here come the side projects: a double-dose of breezy studio puttering and sunny-day cruising music inaugurating the Swede-pop phenoms’ newly minted label/collective, Ingrid. A Flash in the Night, by Smile — Björn Yttling plus the Teddybears’ Joakim Åhlund — is essentially an instrumental pop record, translating both bands’ characteristically cheery melodicism to crunchier, sometimes krauty, frequently synthy terrain. —K. Ross Hoffman

[ FOLK ] 

Simone White’s voice is an airy, delicate thing, and so are her songs, which she renders with an intimate economy that’s almost haikulike, particularly given her eye for natural-world detail. But that doesn’t mean they’re simple. Silver Silver (Honest Jon’s), the L.A. songsmith’s fourth offering, is a strange, protean exploration of sound and mood — intermittently reminiscent of Juana Molina, Tunng and Mirah’s work with Phil Elverum — that finds her embracing electronic textures, collaboration (Andrew Bird; art-pop oddballs Fol Chen), vocal layering, instrumental lushness, ambient drone episodes and even a spot of ukulele soft-shoe. —K. Ross Hoffman