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Reprieve
Our Price: $16.98 Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0748731705220
Label: Righteous Babe
Manufacturer: Righteous Babe
MPN: 52
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Righteous Babe
Release Date: August 08, 2006
Studio: Righteous Babe
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Editorial Review:
Given these tumultuous times, one would expect Ani DiFranco to confront strife head-on, but on this, her 18th album, she tunnels beneath the headlines toward deeper emotional, psychic, and institutional conflicts and causes. She begins by channeling her inner Joni Mitchell, pouring out a quartet of jazzy confessions lightly dusted with electronica, musique concrete, and keyboard drone, but urged forward by Todd Sickafoose's warm acoustic bass. His throbbing, be-bop lines are this spare but somehow atmospheric album's musical soul. As DiFranco's voice bobs and weaves around those rhythms, the personal poetry makes the politics hit harder--and vice versa. She celebrates marginalia and makes peace with a world in flux. She conveys the heat of across-the-café infatuations and grows anxious over her subconscious desires. When she locks her sights on contemporary culture, she sends a scattershot spray against celebrity cults, network news, biotechnology, Yucca Mountain, stolen elections and, of course, patriarchy. But she's a gifted enough poet and musician to keep the album from collapsing into radical rhetoric and psychobabble. The spoken-word title track begins in Hiroshima and ends in a declaration that feminism is not about equality but about "reprieve"--an amnesty from fear and hate, in other words, and an affirmation of life. In the context of a death-driven culture, her decision to bear children, "to split herself in two," becomes the most "radical thing you can do." None of her manifestos, however, would ring true if it weren't for her imaginative, even playful singing and her ever-more accomplished acoustic guitar playing, sometimes classically graceful, sometimes purely urgent. --Roy Kasten
Every new album from Ani DiFranco gives listeners a reason to get excited about music all over again, and her latest, Reprieve, is certainly no exception. Across 12 tracks, DiFranco ignites more of her signature blend of poetry, politics and musicianship.
Ani and touring bassist Todd Sickafoose are the only two players on the new album - something you'd never guess from it's rich and detailed sound. In addition to the usual array of acoustic and electric guitars, Ani can be heard on keyboards, drums, and other instruments, while Todd contributes bass, wurlitzer, pump organ, piano and "fakey-bakey" trumpet and strings.
The album was tracked in her New Orleans studio in early 2005 during a break in her usually heavy touring schedule. Forced to leave the master recordings behind before Hurricane Katrina, she drove back into the city to retrieve them just three days after the levees broke. From there she headed back to overdub in her hometown of Buffalo with whatever instruments happened to be on hand.
Between the evacuation and the time off the road, Ani found herself concentrating on the process of recording to a degree she had never done before, and the resulting album is the clearest demonstration yet of her talents as a producer. Unconstrained by the pressures of touring, she was able to take her time with the record, and the end result is an overall sound that is clear and succinct.
While not intended to be taken as a concept album, the songs on Reprieve do provide a cohesive picture of what's been on Ani's mind during turbulent times on the personal, cultural, and global front.
Ani describes Reprieve as rooted in the Crescent City, and there's a direct reference to that town in the album's centerpiece, "Millennium Theater." The line "New Orleans bides her time" in the middle of this scathing critique of the current Republican regime might sound like a response to Hurricane Katrina, but in fact the song was written well before the disaster that has devastated the city, about a crisis that took no one but the presidential administration by surprise. Like just about everything else on Reprieve, "Millennium Theater" finds Ani speaking her mind, singing from her heart, and playing music like her life—like all of our lives—depended on it.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Grows on you like fungus!!!
Let's face it Ani Difranco is definetly an aquired taste musically. Most people are put off by her "women lib rants", her "quirky cartoon vocalizations", or her "hyper-caffeinated guitar strumming". If your a fan of folk or even singer songwriter fare you owe yourself a deep listen into her prolific body of work. Being somewhat familiar with her body of work I was immediately put back by the somberness of this album but after repeated listens this album really grew on me. This album is really ... Read More
Rating:  - Not her best
I adore Ani but this album is not so great. It doesn't have as much of the syncopated rhythms that I'm so fond of in Ani's other music. The whole album is sort of monotone and the only lyrics that I find very poignant are those in "Unrequited". If you're going to buy a "new" Ani album, I'd definitely choose "Knuckle Down" over this one.
Rating: - Ani at her most boring
One thing I always admired about Ani is that with each album she's not afraid to try something different. From her early coffee shop folk days to her jazzy period to now, one can never expect the same thing from our favorite Righteous Babe.
Unfortunately, Ani misses her mark on this album. Ani's a great lyricist, but here she focuses too much on the lyrics, leaving the melodies to be BORING! She plucks only a few notes on her guitar throughout the songs, as if she's only trying to ... Read More
Rating:  - At her best
Reprieve is Difranco's best work yet. She is at her poetical and musical prime. Songs like "Millennium Theater" are a call for Americans to get out of their cocoons and wake up to what's going on with a corrupt corporate controlled government. Not a filler song on this one. The CD artwork is superb as well.
Rating: - decidedly depressing
In music years, Ani DiFranco is old; Reprieve-her 18th album with her own label Righteous Babe Records-is a decidedly depressing step in what has been a sometimes-rocky aging process. In all honesty, listening to Reprieve made me sad more than anything else, not least because at her best Ani is so brilliant. Here is Ani without the eloquence, without the poetry, without the originality, and, more than anything else, without the raw energy. The sparkle is smothered beneath a somber, glutinous collection ... Read More
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