Ani DiFranco will release ‘Unprecedented Sh!t’. her 23rd studio album, on 12th July 2024 through her Righteous Babe Records label.
The set is produced by BJ Burton (Bon Iver) and it’s a departure in sound for the singer-songwriter. Across the record, DiFranco serves up 11 tracks that offer poignant political and social commentary. Listen to ‘The Thing At Hand’ below:
The lead single off of ‘Unprecedented Sh!t’, ‘Baby Roe’, is a civil rights rallying cry highlighting the need for reproductive freedom and autonomy. On ‘Virus’, DiFranco wrestles with complex feelings about the pandemic, relishing the gift of slowing down and recognizing that humans themselves operate as a virus, environmentally speaking.
Expounding on humanity’s oneness with nature, ‘Spinning Room’ speaks to anxiety, suffering and disease though the voice of the individual and the voice of all of nature at the same time, while ‘More or Less Free’ levels its gaze at the moral failures of incarceration. The album closes with ‘The Knowing’, also the title of DiFranco’s 2023 children’s book. DiFranco believes if there’s an overarching message to come from her record, it’s in this song; the idea that we can harness the power of identity without being limited by it and without becoming lost in the subjective narratives of the ego.
DiFranco is currently starring as ‘Persephone’ in the Tony and Grammy Award-winning Best Musical, ‘Hadestown’. In 2010 DiFranco invited Anais Mitchell to release the original studio album of ‘Hadestown’ on Righteous Babe Records. She originated the role of ‘Persephone’ on the album, leaving an enduring impression on the character as the show evolved over the course of several years.
DiFranco is also a published author. Her memoir ‘No Walls and the Recurring Dream’ was a New York Times Top 10 best seller in 2019, and her debut children’s book ‘The Knowing’ is out now. Her next children’s book ‘Show Up and Vote’ is due in August of 2024.
‘Unprecedented Sh!t’ tracklisting:
1 – Spinning Room
2 – Virus
3 – More or Less Free
4 – Baby Roe
5 – Unprecedented Sh!t
6 – New Bible
7 – Boots of a Soldier
8 – You Forgot to Speak
9 – The Thing at Hand
10 – Interlude
11 – The Knowing
