Chris Beaumont

beaumont@ifa.hawaii.edu
2680 Woodlawn Drive
Honolulu, HI 96822

Ani Difranco's Reprieve

Publication Date: October 6, 2006
Calvin Chimes
Headline: ‘Reprieve’ of Musical Goodness

Ani Difranco: Reprieve

Chris Beaumont

There are some of you who feel that certain “sensitive” topics should not be brought up during social events like dinners or parties. These topics may include politics, religion, or sexual preferences. If you are one of these people, I recommend that you not invite Ani DiFranco to your dinners or parties.

The outspoken DiFranco, who started “Righteous Babe Records” when she was 18, has recently released “Reprieve,” her eighteenth studio album in sixteen years. Frequently confrontational and always poetic, DiFranco’s music is hard to define – except to say that it’s hard not to pay attention to what the self-proclaimed righteous babe has to say.

“Reprieve” finds DiFranco in surprisingly relaxed spirits – in stark contrast with earlier, highly aggressive works (“Dilate” comes to mind). You won’t find her cathartic broken-down screaming on the album, nor will you hear any of her characteristic diatribes against abandoning lovers. What you will hear is minimalist acoustic fingerpicking anchored by an upright bass and sparsely placed background instruments and ambient noise.

The first four tracks on the album are among the mellowest that I’ve heard from her. They comprise a quartet of songs that weave together themes of love, isolation, and expectations. The best of these is “Nicotine” – a sultry, jazzy piece about love and addiction. The next movement on the album is a series of four songs which interleave a pair of politically charged songs with the album’s two most musically “full” tracks.

The political songs are again more restrained here than in her other works (though one should note that they are still more confrontational than most songs). “Millennium Theater” is an interesting reflection on the early 21st century, though some of its lines are more than a little awkward (“digital whiplash / so many formats, so little time.” Really?). Of the other two songs, “78% H20” is the more poetic, which develops a metaphor between water and the inevitable temporality of a committed relationship.

The other non-political song, “Half-Assed,” is my favorite of the album. It is a rare song in which DiFranco sings genuinely about hope and beauty. Songs like this convince me that her copious library of darker pieces does not betray a cynic but rather an individual who recognizes the gap between the way things are and the way they ought to be – what David Dark would call apocalyptic art.

The ninth and title track is a muddled spoken work piece more about feminism than anything else. Its greatest contribution is to create a space between the album’s upbeat second act and the again-mellow final tracks. These final tracks include an anti-war piece (“A Spade”), a song about failed love (“Unrequited”), a mini autobiography of sorts (“Shroud”), and a closing instrumental song (“Reprise”).

The bittersweet euphony of “Unrequited” is unparalleled, and best showcases DiFranco’s ability as a vocalist. “Reprise” closes the album with a short keyboard/acoustic guitar ballad that reminds me of film compositions from Jon Brion or Nancy Wilson. It appropriately concludes with the reflective sobriety that sustains most of the album.

This brief, organic album reminds me of why I like Ani DiFranco so much. It is hard to find an artist who is as lucid, earnest, and stylistically varied as DiFranco. “Reprieve” stands out in my mind as an album which, like Over the Rhine’s “Drunkard’s Prayer,” learns to communicate without shouting, ultimately challenging the unnecessary noise that is present in too much music.