Ani Difranco Allergic to Water

Evolve is the twelfth studio album by singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, released in 2003. The album won DiFranco and Brian Grunert a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package in 2004. This album is more eclectic and stylistically venturous than DiFranco's previous works, experimenting with styles such as jazz and funk.

Even after 15 years of releasing albums on her own Righteous Babe imprint, it's hard to know what to make of Ani DiFranco. Some see her as a folkie-punk-bisexual-feminist-radical-crap-kicker, while others reckon she's merely Alanis Morissette with better lyrics. On her 15th studio album the truth just might be somewhere in between. She does dysfunctional family portraits ("Studying Stones") and broken affairs ("Lag Time") just fine, but she also manages to leave room for rambling, autobiographical beat poetry ("Parameters"). And then there is the music. Matching acoustic guitars with earthy funk rhythms and soft moonlight moods with out-of-leftfield song arrangements, it reconfirms the one label everyone can agree upon: fiercely original.

On September 11 and 12, 2007, singer / songwriter / guitarist Ani DiFranco played two sold-out shows before a hometown audience in Buffalo, New York…

Ani DiFranco doesn't really expand her sonic palette on Dilate, but she doesn't need to. DiFranco racked up a dedicated cult audience on the basis of her conviction. There's not much melody on any of her songs, but there are messages and, thankfully, a fair share of humor. Dilate suffers from a bit too much repetition, but when DiFranco lands on a good hook – such as "Superhero" or "Done Wrong" – the results suggest that she could reach a wider audience.

As she has become both indie icon and industry force, Ani DiFranco has grown more unpredictable, savvy, and restless with every release. On this sumptuously packaged double set, DiFranco often pours her brutally personal and political images into summery, horn-based jazz arrangements–Maceo Parker even takes one gorgeously funky sax solo–and yet somehow still keeps the focus on her own minimalist guitar and vulnerable, emotionally strung-out voice. Her jittery, jazzy phrasing deconstructs the pleasure and poison of her lyrics, so that even vicious lines like "our culture is just a roughneck / teenage jerk / with a bottle of pills / and a bottle of booze" resonate beyond easy condemnation. This is a dark, brooding, but ultimately cathartic work of confessional art. On nearly every track, DiFranco pursues the kind of defenseless honesty and personal vision that few other performers today would dare.