2012 is looking like a great year of music.  This is the first in a series of posts about promising albums for this year.

Jack White – Blunderbuss

Jack White has been recording with various bands for fifteen years, but 2012 marks his first solo release.  White claims that Blunderbuss is “an album I couldn’t have released until now.  I’ve put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my own name.”  White’s ensemble work—in the bands The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather as well as his production and performance on the Cold Mountain soundtrack and Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose—prove him to be a versatile and talented musician.  Considering the intentional way that he conducts his career and business (note that he also runs his own label, Third Man Records), I am excited to hear music he considers uniquely his.

While the album won’t be released until April 24^th, you can sample the flavor of the much anticipated album with the first single, “Love Interruption.”  (You can preview in iTunes or listen to the whole song with Spotify.) The instrumentation seems particularly American in its quirky blend of organ, guitar, and clarinet, a peculiar choice for pop music that just works here.  White sings his spare, intense lyrics, with the support of singer-songwriter Ruby Amanfu, with a crisp enunciation that reinforces his message.  Which, if you’re anything like me, will be knocking around your brain a lot until April 24^th.