Wacky Jack can’t stop changing his stripes
Working with soul queen Beyonce and hiphop collective A Tribe Called Quest in recent years has had a galvanising effect on Jack White.
As singer and guitarist with Detroit bluesrock duo The White Stripes, the American was a champion of back-to-basics sounds.
But ever since White and his ex-wife Meg, who played drums, put an amicable end to The White Stripes in 2013, he has been moving out of his comfort zone.
now living in nashville, the former upholsterer has recorded two countrified solo albums, Blunderbuss and Lazaretto, and widened the activities of his Third Man record label.
The latter enterprise, a Paisley Park-like institution with a blackand-yellow dress code for workers, has reinforced his reputation as an eccentric at odds with the modern world.
But this third solo effort suggests the former Luddite, who doesn’t own a mobile phone, has loosened up even more. White, who sang on Beyonce’s Lemonade, has assembled a new band with players who have worked with kanye West, Jay-Z and Queen Bey herself.
He’s dramatically broadened his sonic scope to encompass funk, rap and juddering electronic pop. The outcome is an album as bizarre as it is bold. There are moments of brilliance — anguished soul ballads and raps that echo the Beastie Boys. There are also flawed experiments and off-putting spoken-word interludes, but this Jack is anything but a dull boy.
Boarding House reach’s most startling departures are its detours into funk.
ice Station Zebra is a zany rap piece with a sly reference to James Brown. Corporation, a satirical take on the Trump regime, is an extended jam built around bongos and drum loops.
There is also soulful simplicity. White, 42, wrote in a rented flat with a four-track tape recorder and instruments he has owned since his teens — and some tracks sound as if little has been added.
Humoresque is whimsical and acoustic. What’s Done is Done, which condemns America’s gun culture, is a country lament.
But it’s no surprise that Boarding House reach has flaws. Abulia And Akrasia, which features bluesman C.W. Stoneking, is a messy interlude. Hypermisophoniac is one of several songs that veer erratically between clashing styles.
Fans expecting something to match Seven nation Army, the White Stripes song sung in football grounds, should steer clear. But the man who launched the garagerock boom alongside The Strokes is certainly refusing to rest on his laurels.
THE latest instalment in Led Zeppelin’s reissue campaign revisits the rockers at the peak of their live powers.
A marathon compiled from two Californian shows at the inglewood Forum and Long Beach Arena in 1972, How The West Was Won is a proper period piece. it is also electrifying. First released on CD in 2003, it has been remastered and repackaged on CD (£13), vinyl (£80) and as a box set (£129), though no extra tracks are added. Taken from an era when Zeppelin were about to usurp the rolling Stones as the world’s biggest rock band, it captures a road-hardened quartet eager to take risks. There are thunderous versions of tracks from their fourth album. Even the ubiquitous Stairway To Heaven sounds fresh. in 1972, it had yet to become a standard and is played with verve, with drummer John Bonham lending the finale a surprisingly funky feel. There was always more to the band than super-heavy riffs. Their blues roots are evident on a languid Since i’ve Been Loving You, while lengthy versions of Dazed And Confused and Whole Lotta Love prove that guitarist Jimmy Page’s penchant for dazzling experimentation extended beyond the studio. Both songs are littered with atmospheric effects and inventive twists. Whole Lotta Love even includes a deviation into Elvis’s Let’s Have A Party that is worth it just to hear robert Plant roaring: ‘i never kissed a bear, i never kissed a goon.’ Amid the noise, there is also acoustic reflection. John Paul Jones’s mandolin is to the fore on going To California and a folky That’s The Way could have sprung from the nearby Laurel Canyon songwriter scene. When Zep rocked, they rocked hard. When they played unplugged, they did so with a delicacy unmatched by their peers.