fiona apple - fetch the bolt cutters (2020)

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

Also - Jordan I have to pick your brain about ‘balanced’ rhythms and geometry and so on

Pretty sure Whiney was the last (if not only) ilxor to give a fuck about F*nt*no, and he's been scarce of late.

keep that shit outta this thread for as long as possible imo

I heard a Flowers of Romance last week too.

*a FOR approach

Some thoughts. . .

So I've been mulling this over for a while now and I'd just like to make a generally unclear post.

I've been a Fiona Apple fan since I was 19. The majority of my life at this point. Being a male into her music has always carried a bit of stigma along with it — hell, I've been a fan long enough to remember when being a fan, regardless of gender, was something that needed to be defended. My point in bringing this up is that, across the board in my travels, up until recently, the people who have been traditionally the most critical have been females. I've met many other people who were fans (casual to even bigger than myself), but none of those people (save one) who were simultaneously accepting of her music and critiquing it fairly were female. I've certainly met other female fans, but they will always have a superfluous, unrelated to the music, criticism. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, as I have absolutely no place to tell anyone how to treat or perceive their peers. I just don't understand it.

The biggest thing that I've seen as a criticism to her music —and I'm not saying that I share this view at all— is that she portrays herself as a "damsel in distress" and, subsequently, caters to a cliched "male fantasy" of rescuing the girl. No matter how many discussions I've had —going back to defending myself just for enjoying her music— I've ultimately been made to feel like I'm giving her music "extra credit" because of how she presents herself.

This is infuriating.

She's fucking brilliant and always has been. Truth be told, I've considered her like a makeshift soul singer for a very long time. 60s and 70s soul music was honestly the first time as a music fan I found myself listening to artists sing and talk about things and ideas that I had no knowledge of — and still finding myself able to understand and enjoy that perspective all the same. That's what soul music is after all, right? This new record is possibly her best one yet —especially in this regard— and, basically having grown up with her music, it's unbelievably satisfying.

To see that the vitriol towards her is seemingly stronger than ever is so disappointing. But maybe that will change as hopefully a new generation of fans will get into her wonderful music on the strength of the new album.

What a fantastic and expertly articulated album.

What vitriol? It’s the most critically acclaimed album in years! Idk, if you’re hanging out in any online places that are tossing vitriol at Fiona right now (not to be confused with genuine thoughtful critiques, I’m not saying everyone HAS to love the album)...maybe stop going to those places?

Yeah, I'm with Evol -- i've heard nothing but positive things about this album (granted mainly here on ILM, but also all the rave reviews).

Side note: my 8-year-old spent the weekend singing "I spread like strawberries, I climb like peas and beans". The number of listens required to get these songs stuck in your head is really astonishingly low.

Heavy Balloon through the end hits so fucking hard but it lands lightly somehow? Teary eyes, but I just start the album over again.

The number of listens required to get these songs stuck in your head is really astonishingly low.

otm - my partner, not a Fiona fan, started humming “kick me under the table all you want, I won’t shut up, I won’t shut up” unprompted today even though I’ve played it through for him only a few times so far.

The stickiness could hurt in the long run I feel - I’m already wary that I’m going to burn out on this album too quickly.

Epicenter of the Anti-Fiona vitriol :
I HATE APPLE

I currently have multiple hooks stuck in my head, probably with the wrong lyrics.

Also - Jordan I have to pick your brain about ‘balanced’ rhythms and geometry and so on

― Priory, Thursday, April 23, 2020 6:59 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha sure. Maybe we should have a thread for our musical OCD.

I’m so sad that this fucking quarantine is making us miss some potentially genius live performances of this record.

Fiona is notoriously histrionic when performing live, she’s always in “the zone”, doesn’t break character much live. There’s many manic moments in here that I’m dying to see played live.