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Some of you are no doubt aware that there is a new Fiona Apple Album, Extraordinary Machine, which Sony has declined to release for over two years, having decreed it has "no commercial appeal" (NY Post link, BugMeNot (or Registration, ugh) required). Well, I wasn't familiar with Apple's music at all prior to hearing this news, but the last time I heard the phrase "no commercial appeal" applied to an album, it was referring to Yanke Hotel Foxtrot, so my interest was piqued.
The tracks have been available for several weeks via various means, and before boring you with details, I'd like to suggest you go grab them right now, even if you thought you were through with singer songwriter womenfolk. Go on, do it. I'll wait. Got them? Good. Give a listen to the title track, and the first track, "Not About Love". If you don't like those, then our tastes differ, and you can safely move along. If, on the other hand, those two songs touch your monkey, there are 4 or 5 more like them on the album, and for a modern big label (as yet un)release(d), that's a stupifyingly high ratio.
Musically, the tracks are like Blonde on Blonde Era Dylan, or maybe Tom Waits, or, as friend T. points out, very like Kurt Weill. Twisted minor key circus calliope dirges, honking/snorting Heffalump love songs, pianos being played with hammers, big Beatles-orchestral-period string sections. The melodies are sneakily chromatic; Apple has an odd vocal style, on first listen she sounds off in parts (or, you think, this is an unmixed pre-master, the "real" melody is elsewhere), but in actuality the chords underneath support each note choice just fine. She's just zigging where 90% of all non-jazz musicians would zag.
The content of the songs is somewhat predictable; this was going to be a Sony pop music release, recall, so there are the usual use me/lose me/lost love/please don't go" style songs. But the delivery of these standard pop themes is wrapped up in the sort of lyrical craft that you just plain don't hear anymore. Feminine rhyme schemes. First syllable and inter-word rhymes. Delayed rhymes, like the chorus of one track that has the rhyme scheme ABCDEFGB. Ridiculous alliteration. Tangible metaphors. Yes, I think it is THAT good. It nests. I can't put some of these songs down.
Go enjoy them. And if you like them as much as I do, write a letter to Sony and tell them to release it.
The tracks have been available for several weeks via various means, and before boring you with details, I'd like to suggest you go grab them right now, even if you thought you were through with singer songwriter womenfolk. Go on, do it. I'll wait. Got them? Good. Give a listen to the title track, and the first track, "Not About Love". If you don't like those, then our tastes differ, and you can safely move along. If, on the other hand, those two songs touch your monkey, there are 4 or 5 more like them on the album, and for a modern big label (as yet un)release(d), that's a stupifyingly high ratio.
Musically, the tracks are like Blonde on Blonde Era Dylan, or maybe Tom Waits, or, as friend T. points out, very like Kurt Weill. Twisted minor key circus calliope dirges, honking/snorting Heffalump love songs, pianos being played with hammers, big Beatles-orchestral-period string sections. The melodies are sneakily chromatic; Apple has an odd vocal style, on first listen she sounds off in parts (or, you think, this is an unmixed pre-master, the "real" melody is elsewhere), but in actuality the chords underneath support each note choice just fine. She's just zigging where 90% of all non-jazz musicians would zag.
The content of the songs is somewhat predictable; this was going to be a Sony pop music release, recall, so there are the usual use me/lose me/lost love/please don't go" style songs. But the delivery of these standard pop themes is wrapped up in the sort of lyrical craft that you just plain don't hear anymore. Feminine rhyme schemes. First syllable and inter-word rhymes. Delayed rhymes, like the chorus of one track that has the rhyme scheme ABCDEFGB. Ridiculous alliteration. Tangible metaphors. Yes, I think it is THAT good. It nests. I can't put some of these songs down.
Go enjoy them. And if you like them as much as I do, write a letter to Sony and tell them to release it.
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thanks for the recommendation. I'll see if I can't find that somewhere.
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dude has also done a bunch of crazy eno-esque session work that somehow ended up with the artist sounding completely different than they ever sounded before. there's a long list of his session work here. it includes Marianne Faithful, Elliott Smith, the Finn brothers, Crystal Method, Lisa Marie Presley (I swear to god), Peter Gabriel, Mary Lou Lord, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Taj Mahal...a whole bunch of others. some of them just credit him with "additional production" or "guitar" or something on one or two tracks (a la Genesis's Lamb Lies Down on Broadway crediting Eno with simply "enossification").
he does this weekly cabaret-style thing at a club called Largo in LA (I think he owns or co-owns, but may be mistaken) where many of the names mentioned above randomly show up and do these freeeeeeeaky improv jams together, or where he just plays by himself and does things like opening up a piano and using a guitar pick to pluck out, harp-style...oh...I dunno...John Cale's Fear is a Man's Best Friend intercut with random samples from Purple Haze, a Day in the Life, and...oh...hell maybe the Ballad of the Green Berets or something, all with one hand while simultaneously playing a weird droney thing on some sort of synth pedals and reaching over every 10 seconds or so to lay down some other layer of freaky fucking electronic percussion. and singing along.
I don't think that particular combination ever took place, but it's entirely typical.
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