With nearly twenty studio albums and as many years of touring, an artist is bound to evolve in certain directions. Ani DiFranco has been known as the “little folksinger” since day one, and most of her change has occurred over the last five years. After her jazziest and brassiest album yet (“Evolve”), Ani announced she was going solo from her bandmates and toured for sometime on her own. Shortly thereafter she brought on Todd Sickafoose, her right hand man and bass player extraordinare. The albums became experimental (“Educated Guess”) and introspective (“Knuckle Down”) until Ani took a well-deserved, but injury-caused, hiatus over the last year until a few months ago when she began touring for the release of her latest, “Reprieve.”
Ani has always been known for hard-edged politics that are infused with her personal and emotive songs. Over the last few years she stripped some (not all) of the political edge in favor of personal introspection. This album returns that personal edge in a different way, with clearly defined personal tracks and very political tracks together on this latest disc. The sound of the tracks have combined some of the experimental sounds (the discordant, the vocal overlays, etc.) she discovered over the last few years with a new piano-heavy presence to create a magnificent, smoother new version of what she does best.
Just prior to her hiatus, Ani announced she wished to do an instrumental album, and that yearning is clear on the disc. “Hypnotized” starts off with a minute long instrumental intro which turns into a gorgeous, piano-driven tune about love. “Subconscious” brings the guitar back with a beat, and “In The Margins” slows us back down with a melody that proves this girl’s got bite, be it hard or soft.
“Nicotine” is another tune about love, with perfect sounding vocals against an array of soft instruments care of Todd Sickafoose (who is the only other musician to appear on the disc throughout). “Decree” brings us the most political track on the disc, with an insightful tune that is also the most up-tempo. “78% H2O” is perhaps the least memorable, and “Millennium Theater” returns us to the politics of our absurd culture, leading into the feminist spoken word “Reprieve” after a short love interlude “Half Assed.”
“A Spade,” “Unrequited,” and “Shroud” close out the disc with both the personal and the political, followed by the epilogue “Reprieve,” an instrumental track. Ani’s last four albums (sans “Evolve”) have begun to slow down her sound, but this disc is the first to maintain a mellow tempo from start to finish. Underneath the slow, harmonic music lie some of Ani’s most personal and insightful lyrics, making for an album that can’t be missed and one that leaves the listener wondering, what will she come up with next? |