Ani DiFranco album release dates are like Christmas - something to eagerly await every year. And for an artist so prolific, it's no surprise that this year's gift, "Revelling/Reckoning," is a double album yielding 29 spankin' new songs with a life span of two hours.
It has been a decade since DiFranco's self-titled first release. Her story of success is one that is told and told again as inspiration for aspiring musicians. After being wooed incessantly by record company superstars, DiFranco created her own label, Righteous Babe Records, to ensure her artistic freedom. Ten years later, the self-proclaimed "Li'l Folksinger" has come a long way from playing dingy New York bars. She now performs at packed theaters and coliseums worldwide.
Heralded as the next Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan or both, DiFranco is quite possibly this generation's key musician. She speaks the truths that are to be held self-evident. She challenges the nation to quit its corruption. She begs her listeners to stop being afraid of themselves. And with the help of her guitar, she can turn out a melody as intricate and fragile as a spider web or as hard and fast as a cheap thrill.
"Revelling/Reckoning," DiFranco's 13th full-length solo album, landmarks her constant sonic evolution. This time around, DiFranco has pared down roughly half the album's tracks - mostly on the second disc, "Reckoning" - to feature her long-term relationship with the acoustic guitar, an omnipotent instrument that romps in the sun on several tracks, yet easily progresses from drizzle to downpour.
Most songs on the first disc, "Revelling," work by piling layer upon layer of sound. DiFranco's band joins in with drums, bass, keyboards and a horn section. Even an answering machine puts in its say on a few tracks. Other guests include Jon Hassell, the internationally renowned trumpeter, and Maceo Parker, the funkadelic saxophone extraordinaire who sang and played with James Brown for years.
|
The jazz influence that seasoned most of DiFranco's earlier albums is emphasized even more on this one, especially within the more funked-up "Revelling" disc. But it's not just jazz that DiFranco invokes - bluegrass, folk and down-and-out groove combine to form her flavor. Yet that still doesn't do justice as a fitting description - DiFranco's music has always eluded definition.
The album's opener, "Ain't That the Way," pairs Parker's vocals with DiFranco's in a celebration of staccato guitar and swinging horns. The sultry, dark "Tamburitza Lingua" fleshes out in spoken word with a backbone of evocative tamburitza and tongue drum. "Kazoointoit" loops an answering machine message under a tantalizing drum roll and muffled vocals asking if it's "the best we can do to arm wrestle over whose world it's gonna be."
The songs on "Revelling/Reckoning" display widely varied instrumentation, more so than most of DiFranco's previous work. And while she collaborated with more musicians on this album than ever before, it is DiFranco who impresses most by taking up a fleet of tenor, baritone and bass guitars, among other more obscure instruments.
|
On the second disc, most songs are mellow, in part because of the tranquil, focused use of acoustic guitar. The lyrics and mood of this disc swim to the surface, getting breaths of fresh air as soon as they come close to the point of suffocation. The majority of songs on "Reckoning" speak loud and clear, from an almost overwhelmingly somber standpoint. They bring the listener down with them, and necessarily so, for DiFranco has something essential to say.
"Subdivision" wonders "what it will take for the country to rise"; at its end is spliced a recording of Utah Phillips, one of the greatest American storytellers alive. Within the throbbing laments of "Grey," DiFranco's lyrics flicker with lonely regret, while the song "Reckoning" decides that "the finish line is a shifty thing / and what is life but reckoning?"
Each disc stands on its own - each possesses a distinct mood and flow - but together, the two form something akin to yin and yang. As a whole, the double album expresses the multiplicity of the artist. DiFranco's voice can "ache like a muscle each time it moves"; it can also seduce, growl playfully or gush like a child trying to fit words in every space between.
As an artist, DiFranco has continued to grow over time, never quite reaching a zenith. She keeps getting better and better but hasn't yet reached perfection. Hopefully she won't, at least not for a good long while; until then, she'll keep pushing her limits, singing us songs that challenge the status quo, making us contemplate life while dancing to it.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
