There are very few artists around today who are capable of creating the total, serious, musical experience. By this I mean that all the key components required of great contemporary popular music are present and correct. It still remains a mystery to me why and how our expectations of what great music is have been driven down mercilessly by the pile-driver of media (print and electronic) mediocrity. In the last few days UK band the Arctic Monkeys were judged to have recorded the best UK album of the year by the Nationwide Mercury Prize jury panel (quote, “regardless of hype and sales.”). It was the band’s debut album and while of a reasonable standard did not justify its elevated, supreme status. The very best music generally seldom offer instant thrills or generate the level of hype and reviewing herd mentality so often evident today. My point here is that the greatest music remains unheard and unrecognised by the masses, and artists like Ani DiFranco stay almost subterranean in popular terms, while enjoying worldwide loyalty and respect from ‘those in the know.’

REPRIEVE will not change this because it will not attract media attention or airplay or generate ‘instant thrills.’ I’ve lost count of the number of albums recorded and released by DiFranco but it must be in the order of 20 or more; all recorded independently under the lady’s own label, and under her own exquisite production hand. More recent albums have shed the lyrical angst and ‘in yer face’ rawness of earlier work, and the later supreme melodic foundations of albums like LITTLE PLASTIC CASTLE and UP, UP, UP, UP, UP, UP. This album, like those released over the last 2/3 years have distilled and refined, rather like a mellow and very fine Claret. It’s difficult to imagine a singer/songwriter of DiFranco’s vintage getting better than she already is (the finest contemporary singer/songwriter to emerge in the last 15 years), but that’s the reality. It’s not blatantly obvious; it’s a more subtle evolvement. Listen to the jazzy and contemplative opening double bass passage of Hyptonized and you’ll wonder what’s coming next. Fragmented piano notes, a more recognisable guitar sound and then the slow, wistful DiFranco vocal arrive. Then there are the beautiful lyrics that seem to become more personal and poetic with time: “I was surrounded by a language/in which I could say only hello/and thank you very much/but you spoke so I could understand/and I drew a treasure map on your hand.” There’s no headline-grabbing melody, but it’s there none-the-less and to couch a most compellingly performed and written song.

Subconscious goes more upbeat in both pace and mood. “And I ain’t in the best shape/that I’ve ever been in/but I know where I’m going/and it ain’t where I’ve been…” The guitar follows suit in jaunty, wandering style while the melody is more visible, tangible. In The Margins combines the best delights of track 1 and track 2 while adding the most original and haunting guitar sounds. You just don’t listen to a DiFranco song without the sleeve-noted lyrics to hand – they are essential: “Such an intent stare/one eye at a time/ your talons like fish hooks/ you are a rare bird/ the kind I wouldn’t mind/writing in the margins of my books.” Nicotine is a most beautiful and unusual love song with diving guitar chords and lyrics reflecting the confusion of it all: “Love is a puzzle/some pieces they adjoin/it’s not like that with us/but I keep flipping that coin.”

78%H2O is a supreme example of the audiophile sound quality of DiFranco’s recordings which endow all of her music with a quite unique intimacy. The inevitable listener involvement is lifted a gear with the superb spoken feminist pros of Reprieve, which also includes the most subtle acoustic backdrop. There are many special songs here but my favourite is Shroud with its titanic melody, extraordinary guitar passages and lyrics that pretty well sum up the problems associated with the false world we create for ourselves. The album culminates in Reprise, a brief and haunting instrumental track.

For those of you that recognise hype for what it really is and who seek real musicality, depth and relevance to the world we live in, this album comes with our highest recommendation. The more you play it, the more you will realise just how important an artist Ani DiFranco is. It also seems to me that music is very much in her blood; as natural as breathing; and so everything seems so effortless and fluid. Finally, we have tried to interview her on several occasions, but without success. It now strikes me that the answers to so many questions lie in her music; it’s where she is at her most open, talkative and compelling.

5/5

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