These days, every artist’s album needs to have a story. The music can’t speak for itself. 

But after 22 records, why can’t Ani DiFranco’s work speak for itself? Yes, her forthcoming album is shaped by stories — ones 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 DiFranco’s spirit. 

It was paramount to the folk-feminist hero that listeners not be saddled with preconceived notions while diving into her 23rd album Unprecedented Sh!t. “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.”

While many of DiFranco’s albums were made more insularly, she’s opened herself up to collaboration in recent years. For 21 of DiFranco’s 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 DiFranco’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.”

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.”

DiFranco has been known as a feminist icon and pioneer of DIY for nearly 35 years. Since founding her record label Righteous Babe Records in 1990, she has released 22 albums, traversing folk, punk, hip-hop, soul and electronic genres and addressing a range of autobiographical, political and social issues. While her first four albums Ani DiFranco (1990), Not So Soft (1991), and Imperfectly (1992), Puddle Dive (1993), harnessed a more raw sound, Out Of Range (1994), Not A Pretty Girl (1995) and Dilate (1996) were more rooted in DiFranco’s folk ethos. She released eight more albums over the next 10 years, earning a Grammy Award for her 2003 album Evolve and numerous nominations. Her most recent albums include 2008’s Red Letter Year and 2017’s Binary. Most recently, fans have been thrilled by 2021’s Revolutionary Love and the 25th Anniversary Edition reissues of both her iconic 1997 live album Living In Clip and 1998’s Little Plastic Castle, via Righteous Babe Records in 2023.