Revolutionary Love

For more than three decades, Ani DiFranco has made the personal political and vice versa. Whether playing solo, working the road with her trio, or in a studio with a raucous band, she has consistently shown unflinching honesty in critiquing the myriad ways in which power informs relationships across racial, social, gender, economic, environmental, and romantic lines in an astonishing variety of musical contexts. DiFranco has also called New Orleans home for some time; many of its musical traditions have burrowed their way into her artistic DNA. While on the road in 2019, seeing America tear itself apart under Trump, DiFranco wrote songs and read Sikh activist and civil right lawyer Valarie Kaurs See No Stranger, a memoir/manifesto for accountable, compassionate living in catastrophic times. DiFranco returned home as COVID-19 became a global pandemic. She felt she needed to get people inspired to vote...believing in democracy, believing in each other and in themselves. In February, just before lockdown, she traveled to co-producer Doug Cooks North Carolina studio and cut this 11-song set in two days with her trio and local luminaries including Hiss Golden Messenger, Mountain Goats, Mipso, etc. With them she illustrated these songs at the blurred edges where soul, folk, and jazz-pop intersect. As a whole, Revolutionary Love is economical and smooth. The title track is drenched in gentle yet gritty soul. As a slide guitar, brushed snare, and Wurlitzer pave the way, one can hear traces of Percy Mayfield in the melody. The lyrics are pure DiFranco: I will tend my anger/I will tend my grief/I will achieve safety/I will find relief/Ill show myself some mercy/Ill show myself respect....And even if you hurt me/I will not shut down/No you cant make me hate you/and carry that hate around. Chloroform offers syncopated chamber strings, electronics, and spiky breakbeats in a futurist tango and a vintage-sounding, rave-up soul refrain. Do or Die makes ingenious use of Curtis Mayfields Move on Up -- complete with sweeping Bobbi Humphrey-esque flute vamps, rolling congas, organic and synthetic drums, and sultry backing chorus vocals -- in a celebratory exhortation to regroup and re-engage. Shrinking Violet is a 21st century gospel blues that looks head on at an abusive relationship with stinging slide guitar underscoring her protagonists steely, redemptive resolve. The instrumental Confluence makes innovative use of Traffics Low Spark of High Heeled Boys riff, with rumbling pianos, drifting flute and saxophone, triangle, bass, and tom-toms. It sets up the stripped-down closer, Crocus, a searing love song for survivors framed by strings, guitars, electronics, and keyboards. DiFrancos singing and phrasing voice recalls Rickie Lee Jones. Revolutionary Love reflects its title as both a call to compassion and a call to arms. It challenges notions of personal and collective responsibility and elucidates the hope for inner and outer change, in illustrating exactly what it means to live and love in a ravaged, suffering world. ~ Thom Jurek

やっぱアーニー姉御は信頼のおけるお人だ、とメロウでブルージーな意匠に乗せて高貴で揺るぎない信条を綴った表題曲を聴きながら思う。カーティス・メイフィールドを連想せずにはいられない"Do Or Die"をはじめ、ソウル、ジャズ、フォーク、ラテンなどをブレンドしたサウンドは深いコクを醸し、豊かな余韻を残す。ソングライターとしてだけでなく表現者としての成熟ぶりを存分にアピールする充実の新作である。
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