Jack White, Boarding House Reach
Listening to Jack White’s Boarding House Reach (BHR) is a surreal, engrossing experience; it feels like exploring a dark cathedral into which light filters through blue stained-glass windows. Tucked into the walls are 13 pieces of modern art, each in its own small alcove.
Such is the rawness and mystery of White’s latest album. In BHR, he explores how his own sensibilities, which tend toward the stripped-down and old-fashioned, interact with contemporary music-making technology. His work with the electric guitar is, as usual, spectacular, its richness and depth a testament to his mastery of the instrument. If there is one thing that sets BHR apart from White’s previous albums, it is his extensive use of synthesizers, drum samplers, and other digital devices. These modernist elements complement White’s more traditional accompanying acoustic instruments, which include organs, fiddles, live drums, and piano.
The digital components are foregrounded from the album’s first moment. A pulsating electronic buzz, which sounds like a scanner attached to a sinister robot from an old science fiction film, launches the leadoff song, “Connected By Love.” The song continues as White, sounding exasperated, calls out to an anonymous lover. Wistful, yet fiery, organ and guitar solos provide this excellent opener with additional texture and emotional weight.
In “Ice Station Zebra,” White comes as close to rapping as he ever has. With spunk and oral dexterity reminiscent of the Beastie Boys, he busts out lines about the fact that “Everything in the world gets labeled and named,” but that this creates a “prison” to which only “truth” has the keys. With laid-back drums, funky keyboards, and driving guitar, this song reinvigorates BHR as the latter approaches its halfway mark.
“Everything You’ve Ever Learned,” the eighth track, hints at what White’s goal may have been in creating this album. He pleads with the listener, asking, “Do you wanna learn? Then, shut up and learn!” Our fast-paced media landscape encourages people to form, express, and defend opinions quickly and relentlessly — in other words, the opposite of shutting up and learning. White knows that some of his fans, and others, will be bothered by this eclectic, meandering album. But this music is not designed to be immediately accessible; like most art, it needs to be digested slowly and deliberately.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Bob Dylan gave us poetry-as-lyrics, Led Zeppelin created their own brand of rock, and Johnny Cash exuded a devil-may-care attitude. These are just some of Jack White’s idols, and he channeled all of them while developing his own distinctive voice and sound. As he asserts in “Ice Station Zebra,” after all, “Everyone creating is a member of the family, Passing down genes and ideas in harmony.” What White has created in Boarding House Reach is certainly worth passing down.
