fiona apple - fetch the bolt cutters (2020)

It's referenced above, but here is the incredible New Yorker profile.

Relay is my standout after five or so listens.

Miriam Makeba's Sangoma seems a good analogue for what she's doing here.

One listen through, totally unfamiliar with Fiona Apple outside of the popular song or two back in the 90s, very impressed. I like the storytelling, the vocal performances, the energy, the sequencing. But so far I'm mainly focused on the literal *sound* of it all. The simple and unadorned most everything is recorded is combined with incredibly meticulous spatial staging--resulting in a sound that is exceptionally intimate but ultra-widescreen at the same time.

More than usual, I almost can't help but "see" the sounds as almost structural, latticed across the stage, almost with different shapes in different parts of the stage. (The theatricality of the music and presentation seems to contribute to that, too).

I'm not a writer, so I doubt I'll really have anything to say about this album. But I feel the itch to make a mix in response to it of sounds/songs it calls to mind. . .

The percussive noises at the start of newspaper sound like ping pong being played in the purple world in twin peaks s3

I like that "Relay" does the same trick as "Once In A Lifetime" (albeit in a more brutal fashion), keeping the same pulse but offsetting where the downbeat lies for the verses (and as a bonus, switching into compound time, very cool)

all the people who have never listened to The Idler Wheel... really should get on that

I will physically fight people who hate this album.

karl was half right after all

There’s a lot to celebrate!

I like that "Relay" does the same trick as "Once In A Lifetime" (albeit in a more brutal fashion), keeping the same pulse but offsetting where the downbeat lies for the verses (and as a bonus, switching into compound time, very cool)

― we have no stan but to choice (flamboyant goon tie included), Saturday, April 18, 2020 4:35 PM (three hours ago)

Am obsessed with this and the effect it has. Instant insanity.

Never heard, but "Hot Knife" (which I think was from that record) was my favourite thing that she'd done so far.

― Maria Edgelord (cryptosicko), Saturday, April 18, 2020 5:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Hot Knife is the closer and to me it's completely the jumping off point for this album which feels very much like a continued, but deeper exploration, of the sound world created on The Idler Wheel...

How many boring men have called this album “autobiographical” so far.

have any of them also used the word “confessional”

U guys can survey the reviews here - https://www.metacritic.com/music/fetch-the-bolt-cutters/fiona-apple/critic-reviews

is it a confessional tour de force

sadly I will never buy the LP thanks to my weird aversion to 2xLP albums that run a hair over 50 minutes

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.)

two songs on a side I'd rather die
― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.)

there are 13 songs though. I don't think they cut a third of the album for the vinyl release.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, splitting an album up like this can be a pain in the ass because of constant side flipping, on the other hand, I think those generally sound better and are higher quality transfers.

sometimes this is more annoying than others. like the Seer by Swans; that's an annoying album to listen to on vinyl. Or the Peter Gabriel 45 RPM pressings. But in this case I think there appear to be enough songs per side that it won't irritate me much.

Crazy solution here re: 2LP... Buy the CD?

; )

Is this an appropriate space to address the weird gender politics that have emerged in the wake of the album's critical reception? Or is that too dire a topic?

that phenomenon makes me way too depressed to ever talk about it but i say go for it if you want

weirdly i'm feeling very thankful that ilx is least worst place to talk about the fiona apple record online

"I wasn't afraid of the bullies and that just made the bullies worse" only on track 2 and yeah, this certainly owns

Shameika and Newspaper are my current favorites

Those plus Heavy Balloon.

I've listened to it several times (under, admittedly, less than ideal conditions)... "Under the Table" is the one that sticks in my head (it's the "keeper" for me, I guess). I think the first four tracks are v good, and then I kind of lose the thread after that. There are moments in later songs that grab me, like the opening groove in "Heavy Balloon."

circling back to say that in my limited musical experience no one writes bitterness like fiona and i love it

I like that "Relay" does the same trick as "Once In A Lifetime" (albeit in a more brutal fashion), keeping the same pulse but offsetting where the downbeat lies for the verses (and as a bonus, switching into compound time, very cool)

― we have no stan but to choice (flamboyant goon tie included), Saturday, April 18, 2020 6:35 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh nooo, I thought we established that Once in a Lifetime doesn't do this! And I don't think this one does either. The downbeat is exactly the same, the phrases are even, it's just that the melody starts on an upbeat. I think we must just hear rhythm/arrangements very differently!

whatever it does (and maybe we can all try transcribing the rhythm and compare) it makes my heart flip

Heavy Bjork energy from 'Newspaper'

She's such a drummer (like, in her vocal lines and piano parts). The NYer article has a bit about her relationship to rhythm and how she ties it to childhood obsessive tics & tendencies, and yeah, big same.

The NYer article has a bit about her relationship to rhythm and how she ties it to childhood obsessive tics & tendencies, and yeah, big same.

big same here, too! that's interesting - never really talked about it here before, but i also had a childhood obsession with rhythm and counting, all the way into my early 20s. i thought of it as the "counting letters", and it involved counting out the letters of words and spaces as 8th notes, with capital letters and punctuation as quarters. "perfect" sentences or phrases were those that ended exactly on the last beat of the "measure", so that the next sentence or phrase would begin again on the downbeat.

i could not stop doing it, to the point where i thought i was actually losing my mind.

same here too. i'm a big rhythmic tapper, to the annoyance of many. when i was younger, one of my favorite exercises was to finger-drum through the beats of a song in order (one finger then the next) until the verse or phrase ended on my thumb or pinky.

*mechanically nods back at voodoo and Jordan and Fiona Apple*

Most of mine would involve counting or tapping a number that felt "balanced", which were actually usually odd numbers (like I would see 7 as 3 on each side and 1 in the middle). Really feel like this led to a connection with Euclidean rhythms way before I knew the term, like the various ways five dotted 8th notes fit in a bar of 4/4, etc).

Love to read about other people's weird mental tics btw

I spread like strawberries! I climb like peas and beans

Been shouting that first sentence into the winds on my daily walks since Thursday.

Yeah, the way she just trumpets those lines is cool.

in that it sounds like it was screwed together at a workbench

SWEET! I learned a DIY recipe for bolt cutters!

lol

:D

have still really not decided how I feel about this album past track one -- I think I might at some point just have to give up and admit that I prefer the idler wheel

(track one, though, is brilliant and among the best things she's ever done)

this album reminds me a lot of trilectic the highest praise i can give an album

i keep expecting eskimo suit to come up next in the sequencing

expected this to be about the truly-awful-on-all-sides f*nt*no discourse

Newspaper has a Flowers of Romance thing going on... maybe?

oh yeah