"The fire in the rearview is smaller the further we get," Andy Hull sings near the end of his band Manchester Orchestra's new project What a way to sum up the march of time in the wake of staggering loss — the inferno burns as bright as ever, but you've pushed yourself past it.

Of course, music about grief is manifold, but Manchester Orchestra's dispatch in this department feels more believable than many.

The Valley of Vision, which arrived in April, is a brisk 25-minute project, but it's capacious and majestic, implying a vast panorama of feeling through sheer negative space. Electric guitar fuzz, prevalent in their past work, has been dialed back to almost zero; tunes like "Capital Karma," "Quietly" and the aforementioned closer "Rear View" seem to hover in orbit. 

"I wouldn't say it's a light listen, but it is certainly supposed to feel like you're floating and in this place of calmness and acceptance and meditation," Hull tells GRAMMY.com. "This was like, How do we still have the same dynamics of our band, but really take away everything we've used before?"

Manchester Orchestra may have consciously stripped back elements of their sound, but they've augmented their approach in other arenas.

Specifically, they released a full-length film to accompany The Valley of Vision, directed by Isaac Dietz. In the stunning film, indoor scenes and natural scenery commingle in dramatic shots, making thunderous statements in and of themselves; the camera lingers for gravitas.

Let the Valley of Vision film whet your thirst for the Manchester Orchestra live experience proper; they're headed on a North American co-headlining tour with Jimmy Eat World that begins on July 11 and stretches into late August.

Read on for an interview with Hull about the genesis of The Valley of Vision — which was named for a Puritan prayer book of anonymous origin — and how the project is a "bridge to where we're going next as a band."

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Tell me how you became aware of VR as a viable storytelling tool, and decided to incorporate it into your artistic expressions with Manchester Orchestra.

Probably like everybody else, we were in a studio and somebody brought one in. We were shooting aliens and getting sick to our stomachs, not having our balance and trying to sort it out.

The initial idea, though, came during [our previous album, 2021's]  The Million Masks of God. I felt everybody was so starved to have an event, and something to do, and needed to be taken out of reality, in a sense. So, I had this idea that maybe we'll have a cool visualizer for that album. That people can go into record stores and experience it and not have any distractions.

Obviously, that wasn't a great idea — to be sharing headsets during that period of time — so we shelved it and gave it more time to incubate. It became a bigger story as we started working on The Valley of Vision. I made friends with Isaac Deitz, and he and I both wanted to make a movie that was connected with an album.

The more [Deitz] got into it and started to figure out how to do it, and the tricks that we could do, it ended up just being a really cool 2D film, just because it's shot with this really interesting camera.

I'm a huge fan of technology in general, in any form. I think all musical instruments are a form of technology, so it's a love/hate thing. So, I was trying to find an interesting way that people could hear the record.

The film looks stunning even on YouTube. Can you tell me how you executed it on a storytelling, aesthetic and technical level?

Well, it was definitely the mission to make something that didn't have a hyper-narrative to it, but still had something that was flowing through it. Because you run the risk of the movie distracting from the music, or the music distracting from the movie.

The discussions were like, "Is this a story, and are there people in it?" And the more we thought about it, it was like, We also don't just want it to be a screensaver. We want it to be something a little bit more intense and deep than that.

So, what you're seeing is really interesting. Why it looks so different is the frame rate, first of all, but [also] what this camera is able to capture as far as width, and the information that it can take and then present on screen is just larger and wider than a typical 2D camera.

The reason we love Isaac is because he really cares about what he does in a deep way. That dude just basically took off for a year and found the weirdest spots across the country and started filming at all hours of the night.

He started to put together, essentially, the story, that's about family. It's represented in a series of really interesting-looking trees.

What were the locations involved?

There's a couple in Colorado, there's a couple in Oklahoma. A lot of it's in Georgia, in our backyard. If you're ever been to Georgia, it's an incredibly green state. When you fly in, you're flying into the forest, so we thought it would be cool to nod to the forests of George as well.

To rewind a little bit, can you tell me how the specter of grief came into your lives via your guitarst Robert McDowell's father.

Rob's dad is not just Rob's dad; he's a really, really big, impactful figure in my life — in all of our lives. He supported our band from day one. 

When I was playing coffee shops for four hours for 20 bucks, he was the guy who would encourage me on my breaks: "That song's really cool, and you should try doing more of that." I'd never tell him that I was covering a Damian Jurado song; I just acted like that s— was mine. But he recognized that I had something, or felt that I had something.

Robert and I have been making records since Rob was 13 and I was 16, and he had a studio in his basement. So, when he died of cancer at such a young age, and after such a long battle, it was impossible not to write about it. It was also impossible to write about it in a lot of ways, so it was a really delicate thing.

What a pivot point for the band. He was foundational from the beginning.

I've been writing about Robert's dad since [2017's] A Black Mile to the Surface, because he was sick for such a long time. Narratively, the album is connected to The Million Masks and The Black Mile; all three are part of the story, and the story's not done yet.

How did this resonate with the title of the Puritan prayer book you found?

This book that the album is titled off is called The Valley of Vision. It's this book of prayers my mom gave me for Christmas one year, and I kind of thumbed through it here or there. 

But an interesting thing about these Puritan prayers: it's uncredited; we don't know who wrote them. But it is the destruction of ego and the falling on your face and I need help. I'm asking for help. I'm not ashamed to say that I need help. It just felt like, Man, that's exactly sort of what this is saying.

Rob's my best friend; he understands how I process things. So, it was making this record actively while his dad's dying, and then his dad did pass. His dad is on the cover of A Million Masks. That is his silhouette, walking into the great beyond.

*Manchester Orchestra. Photo: Shervin Lainez*

Take me through the next part of the story.

So, that happens in 2019. We make that record, and continue to work on it throughout the next year.

I don't want to say in any way that it is easier, but I think that the way you look at grief after time is different than the raw emotion that it is immediately. There was a bit of a calmness — still incredibly sad, but like I said, less of a raw nerve and more kind of acceptance of it. We watched Rob go through that, and all of us just figured out what that looks like.

I think this record represents that in tone, lyrics and storytelling. It really serves as a bridge to where we're going next as a band. It was essential for us to make this album in order to start making other stuff after it.

**As a musician myself, I know that no artistic work can be boiled down to just one theme or feeling — in this case, grief. Music has to be a salable thing, with a quick bite of a concept. So what else was floating around in the ether that you guys picked up on?**

Musically, it was about trying to continue to do the wrong thing, and put things where we wouldn't normally put them. 

Try things we normally wouldn't try. Delete things that we normally would think are important in a song, and then start basing a song around maybe the seventh idea that we added onto something and deleting the first six and starting over from that sense.

Thematically, it was a really healing process. It felt really rewarding to put something out into the world that has been, as far as I can tell, really well-received by folks.

Manchester's always dealt in these themes, and sometimes the ending isn't always happy or tied up in a bow. But it did feel really great to commit to like, No, man, let's put something into the world that deals with this stuff that everybody [deals with]. 

We are not the only people who deal with these themes, but hopefully that could help some folks. A lot of time, music's medicine. So, for us, it was medicine — the creation of it. We hope that that same feeling of medicinal value for the soul, heart —or whatever it is — is translated to the listener.

What foundational albums give you that sense of refuge?

My favorite songwriter of all time is John K. Samson, who was the lead singer of a band called the Weakerthans. He has two solo albums that do that for me. They make me cry, just the way he says a sentence describing an abandoned army surplus store, and that kind of feeling. 

I love words. So that would be not really genre-wise, but that's always one for me.

Music-wise, it was definitely a record that was influenced by newer, interesting, sort of off the wall hip hop records, kind of focusing in on substance and drums that weren't really normal for us to use.

I really try not to listen to a lot of music that sounds like anything we are doing while we're making something. It's especially hard when something comes out from someone I really love; I have to wait until I'm done making it in order to listen to it, because I don't want to start stealing from it, because I know I would. Or, I don't want it to change my direction of what I'm going for sonically.

The Valley of Vision feels soothing and panoramic, like a big hug. Aurally, how did you want it to leap out of the speakers and impact the listener?

It's about openness, I think. When you write things and record things, you leave a ton of space. It's a hard thing to do instinctually, because in my youth, it was like, Well, how does it get bigger? You just add more stuff to it; you turn it up. You think that's what loudness is.

So, this was like, How do we still have the same dynamics of our band, but really take away everything we've used before? There is not a distorted electric guitar on this record other than maybe one time — that's on "Quietly," and a little bit at the end of "Rear View."

When it's so open like that, and your foundation is vibey immediately, then you can really nerd out and start to just place things like tiny little Easter eggs everywhere. It's definitely a headphones album where there are just things that are popping up everywhere. I love records like that.

**Such as?

I love the Kid As and Yankee Hotel Foxtrots and Grandaddy's Someday* and *Sophtware Slump records. Just these interesting albums that have great songs, but also just a ton of wacky, weird stuff going on.

I love what you said: it's a big hug. That's what we were going for — not making it too muddy, and letting the song speak for itself.

"Rear View," the last track on the record — that was a folk song that was written and a dropped tuned acoustic and had a folk swing to it. We loved that song, but it just was boring, just the way that I was playing.

It was just a live take, and we sat on it forever and tried to change the guitar out, and tried to do this, and tried to do that.

Finally, it was stumbling upon a Prophet patch on the keys. Then, we deleted everything else that we had done, started from scratch with that vocal, and started building a cinematic scene around it.

While a good magician never reveals their secrets, you mentioned those Easter eggs, which I live for. Anything you'd like to shout out that might not be immediately perceptible?

There's a really cool moment where my son, River, is yelling in "The Way." 

I haven't seen anybody pick this up yet, but it's the same yell from a song called "No Rule" that we released last year. There's this call and response from my son yelling, and then an immediate, loud, thunderous voice responds to him. It's actually our drummer, Tim [Very]. There's stuff like that everywhere.

Back to Robert's father: you lost a pivotal figure as Manchester Orchestra is about to turn 20. That's bound to kick up some feelings.

That's insane. I don't know how that happened.

I just feel really, really grateful that I am still deeply engaged and trying to get better and don't feel we've really scratched the surface of what we can achieve and do. I'm really, really fortunate that the band is so tight as they are now, and every member is deeply trusting of each other and open.

When you have people who are talented and good at their jobs and also take that ego and put it aside — myself included — it's the thing I wish we would've learned from day one. 

But you can't learn it until you fail at it. You don't have to be right. Let's all work in service of the song and the album not in service of ourselves or our ideas. Who cares whose idea it is? It really doesn't matter as long as it's right for the song. So, I feel great about that.

As long as I'm around, I want to be working on a Manchester record the week before I move on to the next thing, as far as life and dying. I want this to be a long, long story that we're telling with this band — and feeling that's possible is really exciting.

Coheed And Cambria's Claudio Sanchez On The Reaction To Vaxis: Act II — A Window of the Waking Mind & The Future Of The Band

For the 26th year, KROQ-FM's flagship summer concert, the Weenie Roast, is returning to Southern California.

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On April 23, the popular concert event revealed its 2018 lineup, which includes Blink-182, Panic! At The Disco, Rise Against, Dirty Heads, Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, Cold War Kids, the War On Drugs, AWOLNATION, Bishop Briggs, Alice Merton, Manchester Orchestra, James Bay, Nothing But Thieves, and Mt. Joy.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeenieRoast?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WeenieRoast</a> 2018: May 12th at StubHub Center feat. <a href="https://twitter.com/blink182?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@blink182</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/PanicAtTheDisco?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PanicAtTheDisco</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/riseagainst?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@riseagainst</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/dirtyheads?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dirtyheads</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/mikeshinoda?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mikeshinoda</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ColdWarKids?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ColdWarKids</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TheWarOnDrugs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheWarOnDrugs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/awolnation?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@awolnation</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/thatgirlbishop?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@thatgirlbishop</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AliceMerton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AliceMerton</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ManchesterOrch?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ManchesterOrch</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesBayMusic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JamesBayMusic</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NBThieves?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NBThieves</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/MtJoyBand?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MtJoyBand</a>! <a href="https://t.co/raLxIYB2da">https://t.co/raLxIYB2da</a> <a href="https://t.co/UEH2GdocYm">pic.twitter.com/UEH2GdocYm</a></p>&mdash; KROQ (@kroq) <a href="https://twitter.com/kroq/status/988424005488013312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2018</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

As with past roasts, this year's installment will benefit two charities: Heal the Bay and The Surfrider Foundation.

The concert will be held May 12 at the Stub Hub Center in Carson, Calif. Tickets go on sale starting April 27 via AXS.

Catching Up On Music News Powered By The Recording Academy Just Got Easier. Have A Google Home Device? "Talk To GRAMMYs"

GRAMMY winners Jack Antonoff and Common, along with BloodPop and Manchester Orchestra are participating with five universities in Pandora Challenge: Music & Social Impact events, held in conjunction with Real Industry.

The hands-on workshops provide students with access to data from Pandora's Artist Marketing Platform and Next Big Sound and coaches them through outreach and communication strategies to make a difference for important good causes.

Common will be at New York University's workshop on Oct. 11. On Oct. 21 Antonoff's workshop will be held at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell to promote The Ally Coalition for LGBT equality. Other workshops in the series included BloodPop's Oct. 4 event at University of Southern California and Manchester Orchestra on Oct. 9 at Middle Tennessee State University.

The Oct. 9 event promotes the 1 Million 4 Anna Foundation's work on behalf of Ewing sarcoma cancer sufferers. "It's about being a part of something that is bigger than you can even comprehend … helping people," said Manchester Orchestra lead guitarist Andy Hull.

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A fifth workshop is scheduled for Nov. 19 at the Stanford University Innovation Fellows Conference.

"The energy and love of music the students possess is an incredibly powerful combination," said head of Next Big Sound Alex White. "With help from our partners at Real Industry, we're not only harnessing that combination for a good cause but also giving students experience and knowledge they can use to jumpstart their careers in the music industry."

Roger Lynch Talks Pandora's Future, Guitar, Streaming Competition

Heat! Thunder!

No, we're not talking about a hell-spawned weather phenomenon, but rather the 2012 NBA Finals, which pits the Miami Heat against the Oklahoma City Thunder beginning tonight with game one. In the wake of a near-disastrous 2011–2012 season shortened by a lockout dispute, professional basketball fans are looking forward to one of the most exciting NBA Finals matchups in recent memory.

Of course, sports and music stars have always had an affinity for one another, so we asked several musicians and artists for their NBA Finals predictions and a brief summary of how they see the series panning out. The artist predictions are in, but first some background on the teams.

The big drama surrounding this year's finals centers on Miami Heat small forward LeBron James. A three-time Most Valuable Player, James is always a groomsman, but never a groom — he's reached the finals before, but has never won. James will now face tremendous pressure to win a championship and silence his critics.

Expectations aren't quite as high for the Thunder. Formed in 2008 from the ashes of the late, great Seattle SuperSonics, the Thunder continue their remarkable ascent. Though shooting guard James Harden and point guard Russell Westbrook have contributed greatly to their team's rapid rise, it is three-time NBA scoring champion and All-Star Kevin Durant who raises the stakes. If the Thunder win the finals, sports experts will surely crown Durant the NBA's greatest active player, a situation that could be problematic for the Heat's James.

Without further ado, let's see where the musical sports experts stand on either side of the court.

Artist: The Game (aka Jayceon Terrell Taylor)
Position: Rapper/songwriter
Favorite NBA team: Los Angeles Lakers
2012 NBA Finals prediction: Oklahoma City Thunder in six games

"The Thunder [have] got [the] complete package. I feel they have an answer to everything the Heat has got, plus more. To me, Kevin Durant is the best player in the NBA today. He can score at-will. He's got a jumper, a three-point shot [and] he can post up. LeBron is a beast, but I don't think he's a better complete player than Durant."

Artist: Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional)
Position: Singer/songwriter
Favorite NBA team: Miami Heat
2012 NBA Finals prediction: Miami Heat in six games

"I'm [going to] go with the Heat because of this seemingly new attitude from LeBron James. If he can stay as aggressive and focused as he was in the last few games of the semifinals … then I call six games. I don't really remember a series like this where you had the No. 1 and No. 2 players going head-to-head. You know that James and Durant are going to elevate each other's play. You might see Durant playing at a defensive level that he hasn't before."

Artist: Bow Wow (aka Shad Gregory Moss)
Position: Rapper/actor
Favorite NBA team: No preference ("I just love great basketball.")
2012 NBA Finals prediction: Miami Heat in six games

"This is LeBron's third time to the finals, and the third time should be the charm. He has a veteran mindset to the point that he should know how to get it. He and the rest of [the] Heat are tired of the media scrutiny, and LeBron knows what's at stake. He cannot lose to a 23-year-old Kevin Durant. You've got two of the top NBA players who are both signed to the same sports apparel company, which is Nike, so it should get kind of interesting."

Artist: Anthony Hamilton
Position: Singer/songwriter
Favorite NBA team: Charlotte Bobcats
2012 NBA Finals prediction: Miami Heat in six games

"I don't think it's going to be a blowout. I love both teams, but [I want] Miami to win it. I think LeBron's mentality has changed. He's not really concerned about all the judgment that's against him. He's really focused now. Kevin Durant is very versatile … and he's going to bring his A-game, but I take Miami."

Artist: Jermaine Paul
Position: Singer
Favorite team: New York Knicks
2012 NBA Finals prediction: Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games

"I think Kevin Durant brings the best out of LeBron, but I think Durant is going to pull it off. I'm just a fan of Durant — the way he carries himself [and] the way he plays the game. I think it's going to be a matchup problem with the Heat when it comes to [the Thunder's] James Harden. As far as scoring, I think Harden is going to be [the] big difference maker."

Artist: Andy Hull (Manchester Orchestra)
Position: Singer/songwriter
Favorite NBA team: No preference
2012 NBA Finals prediction: Oklahoma City Thunder is six games

"This is definitely my ideal finals [series]. I think Kevin Durant [against] LeBron James is pretty much the best matchup you could have in the finals. It's just the kind of basketball and competition that I like, which is generally fast-paced. If either one of these teams wins, I'm happy … but I think it will be the Thunder. I've watched both teams play a lot, and the Heat just doesn't have the bench. It'll be interesting to see what happens if LeBron doesn't win."

Artist: Blair Taylor (Speakers)
Position: Singer/Producer
Favorite NBA team: Los Angeles Lakers
2012 NBA Finals prediction: Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games

"Both teams are playing smarter and a lot harder. Ball movement, consistency … everything is on point. But straight up — I don't like LeBron. I've got to go with the Thunder. [Oklahoma City] has just brought it out. It's going to be a real tough matchup. I feel like the series is going to go back and forth, and home court advantage is going to play a really big part, but I'm taking [Oklahoma City]."

Artist: Joe Deninzon (Stratospheerius)
Position: Singer/violinist/songwriter
Favorite NBA team: Cleveland Cavaliers
2012 NBA Finals prediction: Miami Heat in six games

"The Thunder will put up a fight. They're an up-and-coming team and they're definitely going to be on the map for a long time to come, but the Heat is my guess. As a sports fan growing up in Cleveland — and getting used to having your heart repeatedly broken and ground into a fine powder — I, as well as most of my fellow Clevelanders, have a deep, deep hatred for LeBron James. It would be nice if the Heat had their a**es handed to them. Do I get prize for this?"

The artists have weighed in with their predictions and it looks like the odds are split straight down the middle — four picks for each team. Who do you think will reign supreme in the 2012 NBA Finals? Leave us a comment below.

(Bruce Britt is an award-winning journalist and essayist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Billboard and other publications. He lives in Los Angeles.)

"I feel I’ve always been in the business of shedding labels, but the world is doubling down," says Ani DiFranco. 

The GRAMMY-winning singer has long been heralded as rebel-rousing and outspoken. On her latest release, Unprecedented Sh!t, DiFranco continues to counter the ideologically divided world, and the labels it imposes. The album is DiFranco's 23rd, and arrives May 17.

It's not coincidental that Unprecedented Sh!t arrives in the midst of pre-election campaigning, affirming DiFranco's drive to use music as a vehicle to protest deep-rooted inequality and prejudices in America and beyond. On "Baby Roe," DiFranco reaffirms women's right to agency over her body and her access to a safe abortion. (DiFranco’s charitable foundation Righteous Babe has long supported women’s rights initiatives, including the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and National Institute of Public Health.) Reproductive freedom is "an essential civil right, the centerpiece of what it means to be free as a woman in society," she says.

DiFranco has never shied from wearing her heart on her sleeve and championing her political views. Pre-election in 2016, she penned Binary, an album that explored themes of women’s right to choose, non-violence, and the fundamental necessity to coexist despite different views. The album epitomized what fans have long known: DiFranco’s politics are personal, delivered with a vulnerability and earnestness that gives her songs incredible resonance. 

She is a lyricist who has always worn her heart on her sleeve and, in 2019, brought that candor to a bestselling memoir. No Walls and the Recurring Dream detailed her Buffalo, New York childhood and adventures as a young folk-punk musician, a music label founder (Righteous Babe Records in 1989), a wife and mother. DiFranco continued to evolve post-memoir; in 2021, she dropped new album Revolutionary Love, and in 2023, released the 25th anniversary edition of Little Plastic Castle. She is, unsurprisingly, determined to rally the disillusioned into using their vote and their voices in the face of some, well, unprecedented s—. Indeed, she’s been writing her second children’s book, Show Up and Vote, to be released on Aug. 27.

But making record after record, touring and running her Righteous Babe Records (founded in 1989) hasn’t stopped DiFranco from exploring new artistic territory. She made her Broadway debut in the popular musical "Hadestown" in February this year, nearly 15 years after creating its original studio concept album.

DiFranco was life-altering for a generation of teenagers in the 1990s, perhaps peaking with 1995's Dilate. DiFranco’s spirited, down-to-earth delivery and fearlessness felt empowering, especially when the radio was otherwise transfixed by male-dominated grunge bands. DiFranco sang about burgeoning and disintegrating relationships. Her albums were documents of a buzzing, raucous city life; tales that played out in Chicago, New York, on trains, in shabby apartments, in cafes and bars. Not until "Red Letter Year" in 2008 did listeners hear a more relaxed DiFranco, who moved to the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans the same year.

A transition from thriving in a bustling urban environment to the remoteness of her Louisiana home, which she shares with her 15-year-old daughter and 11-year old son, altered DiFranco's perspective. Today, DiFranco is prone to discussing the consciousness of rocks, plants and wildlife as easily as reproductive freedom. This spiritual awareness and a grounded observance of modern America presents both lyrically and musically on Unprecedented Sh!t, which seamlessly blends organic instrumental and vocal tracks with dissonant, warped synth effects.

DiFranco is unafraid to talk about aging and contemplating new ways to make music, now that she has finished a 23-album "series" of her life thus far. She is, of course, "an artist ‘til I die," so there is no risk that Unprecedented Sh!t is the last we will hear of DiFranco.

Ahead of the release of Unprecedented Sh!t, Ani DiFranco spoke with GRAMMY.com about her latest album, her Broadway debut, and a career of DIY achievements.

You have released 22 albums before this, which is a huge body of work for any artist. How is Unprecedented Sh!t a continuation of those ideas and stories, and how does it diverge?

In some sense it’s a continuation, and in another sense it’s a divergence in any of my records. There’s a sort of sonic divergence when you’re working with [producer] BJ [Burton], obviously. All my albums are unique in and of themselves, some veer more personal while some veer more political. Sometimes I’m more inward looking, and sometimes more outward looking.

I think we all have these different moments in our life that we move through. On this album, there was a lot of looking at my society, my culture, and speaking to things bigger than I.

I feel like I shouldn’t say this, but I wonder if it’s the last in a series.

What series is that?

The 23 albums series in the life and times of Ani D. I’m 53 pushing 54,  and I hate to make any statements about my farewell tour or anything, but I feel less motivated to write songs the way I have been. It’s a mode I’ve thoroughly explored. These days, I’m working on a theater piece and writing songs towards a theatrical production.

I’m always creating and inventing in my mind, but there’s definitely an itch to change the mediums.

There’s a lot of dissonant sounds, especially in the two tracks "Baby Roe" and "Unprecedented Sh!t." There's a sense of things falling apart, and that the world is driving you to the edge. Tell me about the state of mind you were in when you wrote those songs.

The reason I wanted to work with BJ is because he lives in world of machines, [and has] an immense facility with machines I know nothing about. After so much making, recording and producing my own records, I have longed to incorporate the noisiness of modern life, and the presence of machines in our lives. I couldn’t do that on my own.

In this modern age, the playing of instruments is just one spice, one ingredient to use in modern recording. There are so many ways to make sounds, put together tracks. With BJ, I was able to explore other worlds. So inherently, through us and the process, this sort of anxious, punishing, frenetic noise of the world comes in. The tenor of life in this world right now expressed itself in the music and recordings, balanced with moments of deep quiet and retreat.

The super dissonant, chaotic sounds BJ created from my guitar [are] really extraordinary. I would make recordings of just me and my guitar, and I overdub a few things — like me playing percussion, or vocal overdubs. He just manipulated [those sounds] in his spaceship, surrounded by buttons, toggles and dials, to create the soundscapes but the raw materials were extremely organic.

The only thing not manipulated is my voice.

On "New Bible," you sing "Our roots are meant to be interwoven" and that "men should stand down when women give birth." Tell me about your view of women, their role as leaders and mothers, and whether your views have changed over time.

I think that my views haven’t changed in that I feel differently, but I understand more in terms of reproductive freedom for women. It’s an essential civil right, the centerpiece of what it means to be free as a woman in society. As I get older, I understand with my full being that consciousness supersedes the body. Our spirit bodes and re-embodies, and this is one of many lives, identities and stories, and essentially me and you are one being. We are God, you and I and every living thing. Women are agents of creation. I wrote a song, "Play God," a few years ago: "you don’t get to play God man, I do". I’m literally the creator in this situation.

You have to respect creation and agents of creation, such as women. I speak to it in "New Bible" and in "Baby Roe," that we need to step back a minute from patriarchal religious dogma, from political debate, and look at what it is to be alive. It is not the body. Consciousness is the spirit, the soul, is God, and is light, and that is eternal. So, there!

Did performing as Persephone in "Hadestown" on Broadway have an impact on the music or themes on this album, in which you sing about hell and the sanctity of women, or was there just an organic alignment?

I relate very much to the character, and I have been involved in the trajectory of "Hadestown" since the beginning, since it was a gleam in Anaïs Mitchell's eye, so it’s very cool to come back into the fray after all these years to perform the part on stage. 

There are two couples in the musical: Orpheus and Eurydice, the young starry-eyed lovers, and Hades and Persephone, the old couple, married for eons as Gods. They’ve been through it all together, there’s a real push and pull tension between them, and Persephone is the bestower of life on Earth, joy, and bounty, while Hades is the captain of industry and the underworld — which represents the hell of the modern world and its enslavement of humankind. 

It’s a prescient modern take on Greek mythology. The relationship between her and Hades, you know they don’t ride into the sunset, but there’s hope – like, "we’ll try again next year" – and after being married for 20 years [to music professional Mike Napolitano], I very much relate to that need to renew one’s love and one’s relationship.

I’ve been a fan of yours since "Dilate" and so many of your songs are deeply personal to me. Do you have favorites from your earlier albums, or songs of yours that feel deeply necessary to perform live and to revisit frequently?

Certainly there’s a bunch that have risen as favorites for me, mostly because they work live, they’re very playable, and [are] other people’s favorites. Some that don’t work well live because they’re too slow, or sad, or too something, are my secret favorites. Those are "Hypnotized," "Hour Follows Hour," "Albacore" or "The Atom," which is epic at 10 minutes.

There’s a lot of allusion to nature on this album, which is quite different to those earlier albums in which you were in bars, on trains and on the road. Tell me about how your connection to the land informs who you are, how you live, and your perspective.

It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been a city kid most of my life and I’ve been rapt with the human drama therein, but like many humans, it gets old. The land —  all the forms of consciousness that are not human, all the sentient beings…plants, trees, rocks — is something more profound than human drama.

I live in Louisiana, New Orleans, way, way, way on the edge of town, right on the Mississippi River, which feels both very remote and very New Orleans. It very much feels like home after 20 years now. It’s an immense place, culturally and musically, and I love being surrounded by snakes, owls, the birds on the river: herons, eagles, ducks, egrets. It’s immense and wonderful. Turtles wander by in this big swamp. I really love it there.

You sing "I defy being defined" on "The Thing At Hand." Do you feel that rather than growing into firmer descriptions or identifying labels, you’ve actually shed them instead and is that liberating or confusing?

I feel I’ve always been in the business of shedding labels, but the world is doubling down. I sang about relationships with women and men when I was young, or I sang about my experience as a young woman not wedded to gender being the defining character of a person, or sexual orientation, or race, or blood. I feel like I've always tried to write revolution through just the approach to storytelling and my songs. You cannot hold me down with your preconceived notions of identities and "us and them" and tribe, so I feel like I've always been at this work. And in America, I feel like identity politics has become so fever pitched.

I’m a child of the '70s when identity politics was about asserting identity and waking up culture to the fact that we’re not all middle-aged white dudes, but it’s as though the tool of liberation has become the cage itself. [My children’s book] The Knowing speaks to this: Use identity for whatever purpose it serves to know and find yourself, your tribe, to know you’re not alone but also beware of identity and ending up in a silo, at odds with your fellow humans.

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