Album Eleven: Fiona Apple

Stop Press: At time of writing many musical publications are scrambling to compile their ‘albums of the year’ lists.  There are a number of faces that keep popping up but there is one individual who seems to have unanimously endeared herself with critics and listeners alike and that is Fiona Apple.

So, Fiona lands herself with the lofty accolade of being the first artist to appear twice in Album Club.  Back at the beginning of the year I featured the album ‘When the Pawn…’ and made a brief mention of the fact that this new album ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’ was beginning to make ripples.  I hadn’t heard it at that point, now I have and it is fantastic.

A combination of experimental percussion, jazz double bass, baroque style piano motifs and Fiona’s own brand of deeply personal and highly emotionally intelligent lyrics all work together to yield something that could have gone terribly wrong but instead hits the nail firmly on the head.  She walks a tightrope but never looks like falling.

She had always been interested in percussion, her first albums featured skilled drummers that played parts that wouldn’t look conspicuous on a drum and bass record.  Here she goes further, to my ear it sounds like she is using cutlery and drinking goblets, whatever came to hand, to set interesting rhythms.  In the first song on the album she holds a vocal note while playing a series of chords on the piano, initially it feels like she’s taking us somewhere comfortable and pretty but then takes us somewhere different with jarring dissonant chords.  It is no less beautiful and infinitely more interesting.

Fiona has always played with her image of being a ‘crazy lady’.  She puts out a lit match on her tongue in the music video for the song ‘Fast as You Can’ on ‘When the Pawn…’.  She cultivates this further here with the striking front cover, a closeup photo of her wide-open eye, and with the sounds of her dog barking used almost as a sample.  When lockdown looked imminent, she hopped in a campervan with her dog and best friend and set out for a rural farm, deliberately isolating herself.  While the album has been five years in the making, it has become a bit of an anthem in these Covid-19 days.

The world of popular music can be cruel, particularly for women, as they age.  While not old by anyone’s standards at 43, she is no spring chicken.  She has lost none of her fire and remains fiercely opinionated.  It is unlikely that she’ll fall into the states womanly role someone like Joni Mitchell has carved out.  I believe and hope she’ll find a new niche all of her own.

At the end of the day, for an album to receive the plaudits ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’ has, the songs need to be good and original.  This is undeniably the case and I would not have taken the unprecedented step of giving an artist a second featured record if I didn’t think it was any less than spectacular.