Rating:   4 Ratings     12345  

Ani DiFranco Educated Guess Righteous Babe

      Ani DiFranco has held the company of many a fine musician and producer throughout the tenure of her record-making career. This is not to say she was starving for assistance, as we have seen her seemingly "Do it all" from very early on. Yet each of her records seem to move in one direction or another away from whatever it is she has done on her last attempt. Whether it be a well crafted studio effort or collection of live material, we never seem to get the same thing twice from Ani. This is especially true of her last few offerings where we have seen Ani tug at the reigns of her own creations more and more.

Track listing: 01 Platforms 02 Swim 03 Educated Guess 04 Origami 05 Bliss Like This 06 True Story Of What Was 07 Bodily 08 You Each Time 09 Animal 10 Grand Canyon 11 Company 12 Rain Check 13 Akimbo 14 Bubble

      She has been garnering production credits on her albums since the beginning (all released on her own label, no less), so maybe we all should have seen her approach to 2004's Educated Guess coming from miles and miles away. Maybe it’s been 15 years in the making. Maybe we didn't see it coming because she went so far away to do it--well far from Buffalo that is. DiFranco's new record consists of 14 tracks written, produced, recorded, mixed, and assembled by Ani and only Ani.

      The rate at which she releases records these days is great for her fans. Her most recent work, between live and "studio" records is a testament to the kind of person I interpret her as being:

A woman with a lot of emotion and even more ways to express it.

      Thank god she has the avenue and wherewithal to let us hear the best of it. While Educated Guess may not be the best record in Ani's oeuvre, this just proves further the fact that some artists don't have to bring more fireworks to the party each time, some artists can just be themselves and that's all we need. Since Revelling/Reckoning, I have seen DiFranco's albums as mixtapes to her friends and fans that would be just as suited with labels like "This is What I've Been Up To" and "This is What's On My Mind". The last few albums have been collections of that feel like they were made right in front of the tape recorder, hitting pause between each track to cue up the next. The approach to this album isn’t too far from making that a reality.

      The equation of Great Musical Mind + Great Lyrical Mind = Great Creation would not work if we punched in the variables of Record Exec, Creative Director, or Stuffy CEO on our musical calculator. If anyone deserves complete control over their work, it’s Ms. DiFranco (to you). These recent albums are very much like personal testaments that are being told to a good friend in all of their poetic glory.

      The disc, most of which was recorded alone in a "shack" in New Orleans, begins with a short poem that segues directly into "Swim", one of the record's few tunes that carries a head bobbing rhythm. Where a handful of the tracks on the album are broken (sometimes straight down the middle) up between straight playing, 8 track experimentation, and full on spoken word, "Swim" has a floating strum of the guitar that offers an upbeat invitation to the little apartment in NOLA and all that happened there. While the overall sound gets very loud and screams of home recording on this tune, it's still the first point where I realized that the album should come with a sticker recommending it's listener's grab a pair of headphones to hear the full goings-on. Most of the songs on Educated Guess see Ani layering her voice into main and background vocals, but there are also a lot of smaller things going on that are worth listening closely for.

      The title track is, at times, a duet between DiFranco and herself. One sits in a lonely room in Buffalo, NY with her ear to a tin can and the other in the Big Easy, speaking into a can of her own, the results of which we hear as the two bounce verses off of each other. In fact, you hear a lot of voices all over the track. This song is a great example of the things Ani was able to do with her little 8 track analog recorder.

      When listening to the first half of “The True Story of What Was”, keep in mind that DiFranco is the only one in the room. All of those voices, crooning in the background are all one and the same and all recorded separately then smushed together to give the feel of 3 or 4 women gathered around one microphone. As the background fades away, our poet continues on. All of the spoken word pieces on Educated Guess work as perfect segues from song to song.

      Ani’s guitar playing is something that usually finds mention in one line or gets passed over completely in favor of talk about her politics or persona, but make no mistake, she is a remarkable guitar player. Not only because she fuses a great deal of mood into her songs through her acoustic guitar work, but also because she plucks and strums notes together in a way that is slightly different from your average folkie. DiFranco is definitely a guitar player with a sound that is all her own. Fittingly, the way she plays is the way she sings, is the way she composes, is the way she performs. Some guitar highlights on Educated Guess can be found on “Origami”, “Bodily”, and “You Each Time”.

      Lyrically, Ani is never a slouch. Each song is full of imagery and word play that makes her entire liner booklet worth a few reads from cover to cover. DiFranco comes across as highly relatable to many people and each of these songs can certainly be applied to the personal effects that we all carry around in our personal baggage. Whether a listener has lived out the very situation that is described on a tune such as, “Bliss Like This” or feel as though they are learning a little about, “The coolest F-word ever,” on “Grand Canyon”, there is more than enough insight and comfort to be taken away from the record. Some lyrical standouts include, “Bubble”, “Company”, and “Grand Canyon”.

      Another album trend that has become a welcomed norm is the packaging of her recent albums. The liner-booklet has become void of anything but art and lyrics. Credits and Thank You’s have since been skillfully placed elsewhere and the albums are given the feel of a relic rather than a product. Buying a most friendly priced album (Friendly priced on the Righteous Babe website that is) now awards you an album and an accompanying book of art and poetry that could stand on its own two feet without the CD.

As we read on the transparent inserts in the liner book and hear on the shining revelation that is "Grand Canyon":

"We Have This"

We do now.

-Joel Armato 01/28/04