Fiona Apple is the subject of a new profile in the New Yorker, written by Emily Nussbaum and published on Monday. Among other things, the feature reveals the title of Apple’s upcoming album, her first in nearly eight years: Fetch the Bolt Cutters, inspired by a line said by Gillian Anderson in the British police procedural The Fall.
Apple has been recording the whole album at her home in Los Angeles for the better part of the decade, and last week she posted a video in which she announced “my record is done” in sign language.
As detailed in the profile, Apple recruited a small troupe of musicians to help out with the recording, including indie rock drummer Amy Wood, sound engineer (and Wood’s father) John Would, bassist Sebastian Steinberg of the band Soul Coughing and Latin singer-songwriter Davíd Garza. The actress-model Cara Delevingne also makes a cameo appearance recording “meows” for the album’s title track.
The band used household objects for percussion — dirt-filled oilcans, rattling seedpods, even the bones of Apple’s dead dog Janet — and recorded most of Fetch the Bolt Cutters by “jamming” around the house, marching around and banging on the walls.
A handful of the album’s track title were also revealed, including “On I Go,” “The Drumset Is Gone,” “Rack of His,” “Kick Me Under the Table,” “Ladies,” “For Her,” “Shameka,” “Heavy Balloon” and “I Want You to Love Me.”
The profile includes a scene in which Apple’s sister, Amber, arrives to record vocal harmonies on a new song, “Newspaper,” about two women connected by their histories with the same abusive man: “It’s a shame because you and I didn’t get a witness!/We’re the only ones who know!” Apple describes women — and the struggle to “not fall in love with the women who hate me” — as being one of the album’s core themes.
Apple’s last LP was 2012’s The Idler Wheel… She’s released a number of one-off singles over the past year, including the Simon & Garfunkel holiday song “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night” (with Phoebe Bridgers and Matt Berninger) and a cover of the Waterboys’ “The Whole of the Moon.”
