It’s been 4 years since former White Stripe Jack White released, from a purely structural point of view, possibly the coolest record of all time. The limited edition three-speed “Ultra” LP version of his 2014 Lazaretto album not only played backwards from the inside out into the first ever outside-edge locked groove it also proudly displayed a full-on 3 dimensional spinning angel hologram hovering atop of Side A as well as two hidden bonus tracks pressed underneath both paper center labels playable on 45 and 78 rpm respectively. How on earth does one top that?
As the driving force behind his beloved Third Man Records, the perpetually youthful 42-year-old White appears to be spending a great deal of his time these days plotting to take over the world one record at a time. More than just a record label, White’s Third Man location at 623 7th Avenue South in Nashville, Tennessee acts not only as the label’s corporate headquarters but also as a fully stocked record store, performance venue, screening room, photo studio, darkroom, storage facility, label warehouse, recording studio and record pressing plant. In addition to being home to The Blue Room, perhaps the only venue in the world able to record live shows direct-to-acetate while simultaneously producing vinyl masters in real time, Third Man’s Nashville location also boasts the fully functioning 1947 Voice-O-Graph vinyl recording booth made famous by Neil Young’s 2014 album A Letter Home which was recorded entirely at Third Man using nothing more than the refurbished antique recording machine.
White has been busy in the three years since announcing a prolonged break from live performance, collaborating with everyone from Beyoncé to The Muppets. In 2015 he oversaw the release of his band’s third Dead Weather album Dodge & Burn. The following year White released an exhaustive 85-minute-long double album of collected acoustic music works recorded between 1998 and 2016 appropriately titled Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016. White also found time to contribute to and appear in the award winning documentary film American Epic concerning America’s first ever electrical sound recording system dating back to 1925.
A true Renaissance man, much has been said of the formula White employed to create his latest opus Boarding House Reach. As the title may suggest, White reportedly holed himself up in a tiny unassuming Nashville apartment to write the album. In lieu of any instruments to aid in composition, White, using nothing more than a reel-to-reel tape recorder he has had since he was 14, simply recorded his running thoughts and ideas to construct the 13 tracks that appear on Boarding House Reach. Regarding the process, White told The New Yorker in March 2017 his goal was “to try to write songs where I can’t be heard by the next-door neighbor. I want to write like Michael Jackson would write – instead of writing parts on the instruments or humming melodies, you think of them. To do everything in my head and to do it in silence and use only one room.”
Perhaps it was this very writing technique which fostered much of the spoken word and sermon like vocal stylings present on White’s latest. Recorded throughout 2017 in Nashville, New York City and Los Angeles, Boarding House Reach was realized with the help of no less than 24 session musicians including Sean Lennon’s Ghost Of A Sabre Tooth Tiger (GOASTT) compadre Charlotte Kemp Muhl who expertly handled much of the electric bass on the album. As eclectic and unusual as one would expect Boarding House Reach fits right into White’s ever growing canon of swampy rag ass roots rock. Far reaching and explorative, White’s latest continues to challenge and aspire.
Rating: 8/10
Star Rating: 4/5
2018 Song Of The Day Club Album Review 15/52