| Singer-songwriter-bisexual
icon Ani DiFranco has released a new album. If you’ve followed
her career for any length of time, this won’t come as a surprise.
She’s put out at least one recording a year — on her own
Righteous Babe imprint no less — since 1990.
What might shock you is to learn that for
the creation of her latest, “Knuckle
Down,” the DIY goddess has, for the first time, used a co-producer.
The honor goes to Joe Henry, a highly regarded artist with nine acclaimed
solo discs to his credit — “Trampoline,” “Fuse” and “Scar” among
them. (He’s Madonna’s brother-in-law, to boot.)
DiFranco says her pairing with Henry was
a natural outgrowth of their chemistry. “I
invited him out to share the stage, and we just struck up a friendship
and started talking about making records — which both of us do serially
[laughs] — and really hit it off. We had a real lively creative dialogue
going, so I took that as my cue to step out of my solitude and work with
a co-producer for the first time — invite collaboration back into
my life.”
Another major change with “Knuckle Down” is that DiFranco composed
the songs with the specifics of the album in mind. “This time, I
had not only a deadline, but a context to write for: the group of musicians
that I was gonna work with, and the where, how and when of the record.
I knew I wanted to have string accompaniment on this record. I thought
I’d get string-y with it rather than get horn-y with it like I have
in the past — use those kinds of colors.”
On her last album, 2004’s “Educated Guess,” DiFranco
was a true one-woman show. She played all the instruments, recorded the
tracks in her own home and even engineered the disc herself. This time
around, the contributions of a handful of guest musicians are scattered
throughout the new songs.
Most of the collaborators will be familiar
to fans of Ani’s recent
career: stage partner Todd Sickafoose (bass), former band member Julie
Wolf (melodica), occasional openers Tony Scherr (electric guitar) and Noe
Venable (vocals), as well as fellow Righteous Babe recording artist Andrew
Bird (violin, glockenspiel, whistling). Less familiar but equally notable
are the contributions of Patrick Warren (piano, samples, chamberlin), Jay
Bellerose (drums, percussion) and Niki Haris (vocals).
The music Ani has crafted with their help
is as stunning as ever — ranging
from the poignant yet instantly irresistible “Studying Stones” to
the spoken-word piece “Parameters,” a harrowing account of
a woman who finds a stranger in her bedroom one night. On “Paradigm” Ani
recalls helping with her mother’s grassroots activism, when she was “just
a girl in a room full of women/licking stamps and laughing.” Her
lyrics easily evoke “the feeling of community brewing/of democracy
happening” at those gatherings.
Similarly, all 12 songs on “Knuckle Down” are as intricately
woven as short stories. And through them DiFranco paints an powerful self-portrait
of a woman coming to grips with love’s entanglements, confronting
the legacy of her family and learning to live on her own terms.
DiFranco is touring in support of “Knuckle Down” and
three Carolinas stops have been scheduled at press time: April 21 in
Wilmington,
N.C., at Thalian Hall; April 22 in North Charleston, S.C., at North Charleston
Performing Arts Center; and April 23 in Greensboro, N.C., at Carolina Theatre.
Visit www.pollstar.com for more details. |
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