Jack White Lazaretto (180 Gram Vinyl, Digital Download Card) - (M) (ONLINE ONLY!!)

Like "blunderbuss," a "lazaretto" is an ancient reference that means little in the modern world, a fact that does not escape Jack White, a musician who specializes in blurring lines between past and present. Contrary to his carefully cultivated persona as a raider of lost Americana, White never, ever was a purist: he thrived upon seizing the precise moment when accepted definitions lose all meanings and turn into something new. This tension surfaces on Lazaretto, his second solo album, a record that lives upon the edges of his interests. There is a fair share of blues bluster -- via Zeppelin riffs and huffed references to digital cameras, the opener "Three Women" modernizes Blind Willie McTell, while he twists a refrain from Howlin' Wolf's "I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)" on "Just One Drink" -- but Lillie Mae Rische's violin occupies nearly as much space as his own howling guitars, pushing White into the left field where he prefers to reside. That eccentricity is the pleasure