There's been nothing but accolades heaped upon DIY folk-pop-guitar goddess Ani Difranco since, well, we can remember. Her jittery, lo-tech and highly effective songwriting style -- as unpredictable as it is crazy-sexy-cool -- has become high folk art lately, elevated by Difranco to unexpected heights on (most recently) her To the Teeth disc.
With five tracks running at just over 30 minutes, Swing Set is a cozy offshoot of To the Teeth. You get two versions of that album's third single, "Swing": an abbreviated radio edit and the original album version. There's a "shoot-out remix" of the title tune, a reinvention of Ani's brittle gun critique, and a live version of Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Me," performed with Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, and talented Greg Brown colleague Bo Ramsey.
Swing Set also contains Ani's cover of folk legend Phil Ochs' "When I'm Gone," a ditty from the soundtrack to the Abbie Hoffman biopic Steal This Movie, and finally, Ani's breathless cover of Bob Dylan's "Hurricane," an attempt to head off a bottlegged rendition circulating on the web.
All in all, a low-key, low-impact set -- largely for completists -- that neither helps nor hinders Difranco's already cemented rep as a totally exhilarating act.
Bob Gulla
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