Fiona Apple
The Idler Wheel...
Epic
****
Compromise has always been like kryptonite to artists, but the idiosyncratic US singer-songwriter Fiona Apple learnt a thing or two about it during the making of her last album.
After three years in the studio, Extraordinary Machine was finally released by her label in 2005, amid reports that its commercial appeal had been in serious doubt. Returning with an album whose full title is 23 words long, it seems like Apple is determined never to compromise again.
The likes of Every Single Night, Daredevil and Left Alone show the singer hasn't lost her ability to craft songs that feel both universal and deeply personal, deployed here with sparse, almost jazzy arrangements. Then there are more introspective one-woman-and-a-piano moments, such as the darkly comedic Werewolf and the tortured Regret.
But despite all the warning signs, The Idler Wheel... is not an overindulgent or impenetrable artistic statement. In fact at times it feels like Extraordinary Machine's slightly more restrained younger sibling. Although not wildly experimental, it isn't greatly immediate either - just the sound of an artist confident enough to do things her own way, whatever they may be.
