The original folk music riotgrrl gets back to her lo-fi roots on Educated Guess. The band is gone. It's just the girl, the guitar, the voice, the attitude.
But..I don't really feel like talking about any of that stuff. I mean, the songs are fantastic. Amidst the usual (if you can actually apply that word to Ani) feminist, anti-corporate and humanist messages is something new: songs of sadness and despair. Musings on the breakup of her marriage? Probably. All of the tunes are built on simple layers of Ani's distinctive voice and angular, almost jazzy guitar. Weird mouth noises float in here and here from all directions. The guitar is lightly stroked at one moment, punished the next. Bonus points for recording the whole thing on an old reel-to-reel.
What I really wanna talk about is the artwork. It just pushes this release over the top. Just plain outstanding. The booklet surrounds the lyrics sheets with odd photos, poetry and drawings. Sure, when you are the company (Righteous Babe Records) you can get the liner notes you want. But this is no control thing. No, it's just another of the many ways DiFranco makes a connection with her fans. Yep, she cares...and this aesthetic gesture makes the point beautifully.
I got to wondering what other people thought of this stuff. One of the first reviews I stumbled upon was not for this record but for 2001's Revelling/Reckoning. The reviewer hated the package: it was pretentious and 'difficult to handle and store'.
Wow. How times have changed. An album's lyric sheets and supporting artwork used to be something to celebrate. Now we only care about the functionality of the object?
See, I love this package so much that it just reinforces my belief that I'll never be satisfied with a fully downloaded musical universe. Yea, you can snag the artwork from a website: wallpaper, backgrounds, icons, etc...but it's not the same. There's no soul to it. The artist didn't put a package together for you.
I can hold this thing in my hands. Heck, it even smells good.
Hey, what do I know? Maybe my lament about the CD age loss of album cover art is just a cry wasted in the face of unstoppable 'progress'. But if the day comes when music is no longer sold as a physical object, we will all be diminished.
(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)
Article comments
1 - manda
you're totally right about the packaging; it's gorgeous, as all of her recent stuff has been. it's just too bad the music isn't better.
2 - Mark Saleski
i just like the general lo-fi, weird vibe going on.
kinda funny what people like (and don't like) in music.
3 - cna2156
She never fails to amaze me.Each body of work is like a gorgeous sunset in a different locale. The landscape is different but the impact is always breathtaking, touching your soul.