It’s 1990-something and we’ve all got that best friend who enriches our lives with their incredible mixtapes. Better than the music itself was the feeling that came with it, knowing just how much effort they had put into it to make it just for you. Well, fast forward to 2019 and your friend Ani has done just that very thing for you! This No Walls Mixtape featuring new stripped-down versions of 16 Ani classics is the perfect musical companion for your first read of her memoir No Walls And The Recurring Dream.

Ani included this note for you: “It’s a flight of Ani songs that I took the liberty of revisiting, solo stylie, twenty… (thirty?!) years later, songs that factor (either literally or figuratively) into my memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream. These songs take the same stumbly trip through my formative years that the book takes — except for “To The Teeth.” “To The Teeth” has nothing whatsoever to do with the book; I just wanted to include it.

“I took a few liberties with my own lyrics here; in other words, the me that I am now sang these songs in the present, even though they are old songs. I also took some liberties with the chords, mostly because I couldn’t remember the right ones.

“I am blessed to have three very special guests join me on this otherwise solitary outing. All are musicians I love, people who make appearances in No Walls and the Recurring Dream in some form or another. They are people who have already given me gifts along my journey and now, here is one more.”