Ani DiFranco is set to release her 23rd album -
Unprecedented Sh!t, on May 17, 2024.
Ani DiFranco’s forthcoming album is shaped by stories about reproductive freedom, the double-edged sword of the pandemic, identity and ever-evolving belief systems that have shaped each of its 11 songs. There are songs that were written in 2011 and in 2022; some for musicals, others for children’s books. The album isn’t linear, but it is inherently teeming with Ani’s spirit.
“I believe there is a rhyme and a reason as to why these songs have come together in this way now and I want people to experience this album as a journey, a piece of art, without being influenced by a cacophony of surrounding narratives.” - ani
While many of Ani’s albums were made more insularly, she’s opened herself up to collaboration in recent years. For 21 of her 22 albums, she opted to self-produce. With Unprecedented Sh!t, she wanted to try working with a producer and tapped BJ Burton, who produced one of her favorite albums, Bon Iver’s 22, A Million. With Burton’s help, largely from afar, they created soundscapes often using only Ani’s voice and guitar as the raw materials and manipulating them with effects and filters.
“I really wanted to lean into the power of machines in a way that I never have before, so BJ and I communicating through many layers of them in order to collaborate, seemed apropos. This record was made almost entirely by me and BJ alone, bouncing things back and forth.” - ani
The title Unprecedented Sh!t is not only representative of how much of a sonic departure the 11-track album is from Ani’s other work, but also a political and social commentary on the current state of the world. “We find ourselves in unprecedented times in many ways, faced with unprecedented challenges. So, our responses to them and our discourse around them, need to rise to that level.”
Click Here to Pre-Order Unprecedented Sh!t
Track list:
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
Ani DiFranco's New Double Single "The Thing at Hand + New Bible" Out Today
Ani DiFranco's double single "The Thing at Hand + New Bible" is out today from the forthcoming album Unprecedented Sh!t.
Stream "The Thing at Hand + New Bible here.