"Hot Knife" by Fiona Apple

Hot Knife opens with a distant rumble of timpani drums. Fiona Apple's voice sits naked just left of center, unhurried, while the track makes you wait for what comes next. Spoiler alert: it's a hair-raising sonic storm.

I love songs that build like this: each element arrives on its own terms, and you can place every piece on the soundstage as they come in. Sharp staccato piano stabs at the mix and then leaves as abruptly as it arrived. Looping vocals start layering onto one another appearing and disappearing all over the sound. The multipart harmonies don't quite line up; in a good way. The timpani (Apple is playing it herself) keeps rolling on as the mids and highs all create the lightning to their thunder.

The album this comes on is unusual. It's titled The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, which tells you everything about Fiona Apple refusing the box her record label might prefer. It's the sort of artistic tantrum that falls flat if you don't have the chops to back it up. Fiona has the chops, though. So I dig it.

Hot Knife is the penultimate track on most streaming editions (the expanded release tacks on a bonus song called "Largo" after it), but it still plays like a closer: patient, weird, and completely uninterested in radio play, or marketing or the man. Charley Drayton adds percussion while Apple's sister Maude Maggart helps stack vocal rounds that sweep and pan across the stereo field as the whole thing climbs. The layered vocals are a trip once they get going in earnest. This plays great on cans and in a room. Apple's voice stays raw, uninhibited, and exposed the entire way. Vulnerable on the surface but undeniable in power.

Listen for: At 1:04 when the supporting vocals start to come in listen for how each part retains its own space and nuance. The detail is something special.

Data

Song: Hot Knife
Album: The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
Artist: Fiona Apple
Genre: Art Pop, Experimental Rock
Year: 2012
Length: 4:02
Engineer: John Would, Eddison Sainsbury
Producer: Fiona Apple, Charley Drayton