fiona apple - fetch the bolt cutters (2020)

thank you ums <3

I like both maura’s and p4k reviews, they pick on different aspects on why this album has the potential of being an early contender for AOTY, great release date too imho. Right place, right moment sort of album.

in one of the videos where she answer fans questions, one of them asks her who some of her favorite musicians are, and the 3 she names are Miriam Makeba, Kate Bush, and Joan Armatrading. I feel like this provides all the context you'd need for the world this music exists in.

anyway, Fiona is my actual hero and she has never sounded more like herself. so grateful for her.

Great review Maura!

And yes I agree that both reviews (i.e. Maura's and Pitchfork's) are good. This is one of those rich, dense but inviting albums that I expect will inspire a lot of good writing.

The Pitchfork review references the Slits which makes sense to me but the other act I hear a simpatico with (perhaps because I have been listening to them a lot recently) is The Raincoats (as well as early Veda Hille as mentioned upthread).

Makes sense -- Pelly wrote a 33 1/3 book on The Raincoats.

I'm adoring this already. So glad it has taken the drums-and-piano-in-conversation style of Idler Wheel and used Hot Knife as the jumping off point.

i don't know if i'm comin across but i'm really trying

The Slits reference would work if they had made more songs like "Newtown" (their most Raincoats-y, so Tim otm). Is late Tom Waits too obvious to mention? I found Pelly's "no music has ever sounded like this" line a little silly (Is This Desire? and Medulla also come to mind; I listened to Horse Rotorvator for the first time the other day, etc.).

Anyway, "Criminal" is the only Apple song I've previously consciously heard, so this is pretty wild! I'm not sure it will quite turn out to be My Thing, but I can see why everyone is flipping over it. Even not paying full attention to the lyrics, some knife-like lines pop out.

Presumably it was the editor's call but referring to it as "Fetch" I found very jarring. Couldn't get Mean Girls out of my head, so in essence, your editor should stop trying to make "Fetch" happen.

"No music has ever sounded like this" is not a good line to write in a review of anything I'll be honest.

Vinyl is available for preorder from her website. Includes immediate download. Looking forward to this.

Presumably it was the editor's call but referring to it as "Fetch" I found very jarring. Couldn't get Mean Girls out of my head, so in essence, your editor should stop trying to make "Fetch" happen.

― in twelve parts (lamonti), Friday, April 17, 2020 6:25 AM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao

Maybe my googling skills are rusty, but I'm having a hard time finding her website...

just on shameika and feeling likewise

― devvvine, Thursday, April 16, 2020 10:18 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

otm

Ha, I don't know why I had a problem with it, but I had to google "fetch the bolt cutters vinyl" to get to a reddit forum which then had a link to her store.

ok now here we are at relay, holy jeez

my display name is more relevant than i would've thought lol

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

Simon it's sonically irresponsible to press over 45 mins on a single record!! head to the audiophile thread for reeducation

audiophiles can suck it imho

that hurts

two songs on a side I'd rather die

I feel like my only slight criticism after a few listens is I could have gone for a little less repetition on "Cosmonauts". but that's very nitpicky.

First song is good, but kind of a conventional piano song for the most part? I guess I expected it to be weirder on first blush....ok now doing some dolphin noises

That's a false signal.

was skeptical during the first track, and then every single song after that bowled me over, fiona cannot be dethroned

I feel like my only slight criticism after a few listens is I could have gone for a little less repetition on "Cosmonauts". but that's very nitpicky.

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Friday, April 17, 2020 7:39 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i could listen to that chorus foreverrr

This is cool.... One thing that comes to mind is The Jungle Line off Hissing of Summer Lawns

I love the super dense piano sound, the booming upright bass, and it's got some of the best clattering percussion since Tom Waits's Bone Machine. The drums sound like a full kit set up in a cramped bedroom. Plus barking dogs. I'm very into this on first listen, and there's a lot to come back to.

This is cool.... One thing that comes to mind is The Jungle Line off Hissing of Summer Lawns

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 17, 2020 10:02 AM (fifty seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

agreed, but that song has never connected with me like every song here did almost immediately

I love the super dense piano sound, the booming upright bass, and it's got some of the best clattering percussion since Tom Waits's Bone Machine

I came back here to say that it definitely reminds me of mid-80s Waits in some parts which is A Good Thing

and early '80s solo Lindsey Buckingham.

god the gut punch that bisects "For Her"

kind of crazy how unfashionable Tom Waits has become, checked out a few reviews, none mention him, even though it's a pretty obvious reference point

it's the most conventional track here but still i want you to love me is deliriously beautiful

oh wow Sebastian Steinberg from Soul Coughing plays bass on this, that makes so much sense

agreed on the Tom Waits sound

it'll take a few spins for me to get the hang of this; I found it distracted/distracting on first listen (as I do Waits), but it seems worth further attention

it's the most conventional track here but still i want you to love me is deliriously beautiful

When the album started I was like "Ah crap, this is some more girl-and-her-piano bullshit - I've been suckered again!" NOPE.

This is frustrating. I would like to purchase this, but all I get upon googling is people talking about people talking about what they think of it.

I hate contemporary society.

https://www.fionaapplestore.com/dept/featured?cp=107902_107930

For ease, since I'm not the only one that had problems finding it.

i would beg to disagree but begging disagrees with me

might have to cop that crewneck

JFC finally found it only took thirty minutes

This album

The repetition in Cosmonauts is a necessity, it wouldn’t feel growing in intensity without it.

loving the No New York style guitar on 'On I Go'

ICAMI she did a track by track thing for Vulture

https://www.vulture.com/2020/04/fiona-apple-fetch-the-bolt-cutters-songs.html

I am not normally a believer in identity-based arts criticism - once you put a piece of art out into the world, any member of the public has the right to comment on it - but I really want to read reviews of this album from women over 40.

"I hardly ever write a song about just one person, but there was one time that I wrote a song that was not a nice song, and it was about one person, and I felt the need to tell that one person and play them that song before it came out, and it went fine."

just gonna assume that she means "it went fine, for me" and that this other person melted immediately

good thing i was born in 1975