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Written by Jack Chester
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Monday, 14 August 2006 |
Ani DiFranco
Reprieve
Righteous Babe
Ani DiFranco continues to be the hardest working (honest) woman in show business. The opening track on her latest record builds slowly from an acoustic bass solo into a translucently lucid meandering introspective ballad befitting its title, "Hypnotized." Initially, Reprieve feels aesthetically softer than much of her previous recording and while Ani gets more personal than political on this release, her residual rage from the most recently stolen presidential election fuels the deliberately chaotic "Decree" and the softly dark "Millennium Theater."
If there is a real difference here from her older material (if such a distinction need be made), it is in the musical depth of the subtle but many layers of instrumentation and found object sounds in these new tunes. As has been true of her recent recordings, very few hands touch the process, but there seems to be a new attention to filling in all the little spaces between the chords and Ani's considerable conscience. Reprieve is typical of the honesty and poetry that DiFranco's long-time fans have come to count on, giving new fans a continuously growing mountain of work to mine. Jack Chester
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Last Updated ( Monday, 08 January 2007 )
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