"I like things as honest as possible," he conceded, "even if sometimes they can only be an imitation of honesty."

White Stripes : Elephant

For one who talks so much about honesty, Jack White is a difficult man to trust. When last we hear him on 'Elephant', he is hanging out on what sounds like Lee Hazlewood's porch, but is actually Toerag Studios in Hackney, engaged in a giggly menage a trois with Holly Golightly and his beloved sister Meg. Holly is pushy, loving Jack "like a little brother". Meg opines, "Jack really bugs me". Jack is cagey, but eventually succumbs. "Well Holly I love you too," he admits, "But there's just so much that I don't know about you."
And just so much, Jack, that we don't know about you. Even after 'It's True That We Love One Another', Track 14 of the fourth White Stripes album, all remains deliriously unclear in the world of Jack and Meg White. Here are devious confusions between romantic and maternal love, a neurotic approach to the wiles of women, numerology, infantilism and, not least, some of the most obliteratingly brilliant rock'n'roll of our time.
In other words, business as usual at Camp White Stripe. Improbable success, old marriage certificates in the public domain, the New Rock Revolution - nothing has adversely affected the way they conduct their business. There are cosmetic changes, with longer hair and outfits fit for Grand Ole Opry goths. But, still, they look more suited to a night out in Detroit's ruins rather than restyled for celebrity.
In the recording studio, too, not much has altered. The location's shifted from Detroit to London, though only the presence of Holly Golightly and Jack brandishing a cricket bat on the cover signal it. 'Elephant' remains the work of champion Luddites, recorded onto eight-track tape using equipment built before 1963 - guitars, Meg's drums, the odd keyboard. The bristly frequencies that open the album aren't a bass, but Jack's guitar fed through an octave pedal. Review copies are exclusively vinyl. Jack and Meg still address one another as brother and sister. How sweet. How determined. How treacherous.
Musically honest - as in untainted by those hussies, computers - it may be. But Jack's definitions are slippery. The White Stripes' music has always existed in a fabricated reality, defined by Jack in his first NME interview. "I like things as honest as possible," he conceded, "even if sometimes they can only be an imitation of honesty."