Fiona Apple
Fetch The Bolt Cutters

Stripping oneself bare is not just a matter of modesty; it is also about courage and personal security, it is a matter of maturity.

Stripping oneself bare is not just a question of vanity or superficial appearance; it is also a need to expose your own truth, to show your life experiences, an urgent necessity to communicate.

Eight years have passed since “The Idler Wheel...”, eight years of life that Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart has laid down in these thirteen self-composed, performed, and produced tracks.

The album sounds almost raw, violent, percussive, tribal, visceral, yet perfectly harmonic. Just consider that all the tracks were made in the home of the now 43-year-old singer, pianist, composer, and producer between the end of 2019 and the early months of 2020.

Fiona Apple comes out of her closed, confined lair and tries to open up and pour into music everything that is still vivid in her mind, from personally encountered obstacles to those recognized in the bonds of other people, which can be terribly limiting if inappropriately internalized.

A trivial example is that of the judicious teenage friend Shameika: "Shameika said I had Potential". Apple, for her part, has always been angry with life and constantly troubled by the judgment of others, didn’t listen to her, and remained sharp-edged, ready for cutting accusations, with a refusal of sociality, wanting only to be left in peace.

For those who have never dealt with the daughter of Brandon Maggart, Fiona interrupted her tour in South America in 2012 to be by the side of her dying beloved pit bull, Janet, as she called her, “the longest-lasting bond in her life”. Here too lies the concept of appreciating the time life has granted her, that is, whether for good or ill, what we are allowed to assimilate on our journey. She also confirms it in “I Want You to Love Me”, the opening track, explicitly stating in her verses: "I Know That Time is Elastic". The chorus is deliberately extended, totally unconventional.

Violent and percussive, because besides the piano mainly played with the soundboard open, there is Sebastian Steinberg’s bass (who was with her in 2012 in production as on this occasion), David Garza’s guitar (a multi-instrumentalist and producer), and Amy Aileen Wood’s percussion, plus Bobb Bruno's special effects. The notable presences include her panssexual companion Cara Delevingne (“Fetch the Bolt Cutters”) and her sister Maude Maggart (“Newspaper”).

You can perfectly hear the hammers on the strings merging with the powerfully transparent vibrations; the percussion, claps, and invented instruments (even dog bones, cookware, household tables) affect us; you can perceive Fiona’s teeth (“On I Go”), recognize the various timbres, one after the other, and related intentions. Anger, pain, mockery, passion, soul, every vocal emission is closely linked to an emotional state. The recitative mixed with singing, singing mixed with shouting, the shout blending with the declamation, which finds the perfect combination in the chaotic musical ecstasy.

The New York artist is no longer the 19-year-old of “Tidal”, the dichotomous reality between the appearance of pop starlets and the more detached and asocial artist, almost like a Wednesday Addams with sublime piano and vocal talent, but she is a mature woman, brimming with talent and throwing it in our face with “For Her”, a Tune Yards-like track, made completely autonomously, in which a cruel, bloody, and indelible past returns (“You raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in”) and gives us a fragment of her philosophy in “Under the Table” when without beating around the bush she sings "Kick Me Under the Table All You Want / I Won’t Shut Up".

“Fetch the Bolt Cutters”, meaning “Bring me the cutters” makes a cut with the past, perhaps not so sharp but certainly evident. This album is a huge container, big because it allows finding a multitude of elements never seen before, hidden or never explored, others already present in her other works. It resembles a puzzle that places all the pieces in their spots, both melodically/harmonically and thematically, even if initially it gives you a certain headache, thrusting you into a phase of despair due to the number of inputs sent, but slowly, listen after listen, word by word, it leads you from apparent confusion to the visualization of the final result, a naked truth, an artistically naked Fiona Apple, finally, ready to move on.

"On I go, not toward or away

Up until now, it was day, next day

Up until now, in a rush to prove

But now, I only move to move"