Hot Knife by Fiona Apple
This jam was posted by 204 people
but djteridactyl was first
I love Fiona because she's unpredictable. As if there was something boiling, wild but controlled, imminent in her music. From one of my favourite albums of #2012
10
If I'm butter - if I'm butter - If I'm butter, then he's a hot knife, he makes my heart a cinemascope screen showing the dancing bird of paradise.
Genius.
This might not be standard pop fodder but recommend you wrap your ears round it, esp. if you're into blues and jazz. Apart from Apple's expressive and raw vocal delivery, it's rooted in a capella multi-part singing with complex rhythmic and counterpoint layering of vocal parts (esp. from 2:44 until the end). It's got all the blues notes you could wish for. (It is somewhat reminiscent of mid 20th C writing for musicals to my ears.) And it relies on timpani (or to be more accurate, a timpano). Nice to see a classy video too. If you've never come across her, Fiona Apple came into the public eye in the mid-90s at the age of 19, and was immediately placed in the same 'singer songwriter' genre as Alanis Morissette & Tori Amos. She's released only 4 albums in 18 years. This song is from her latest album "The Idler Wheel..." released in 2012. The album was nominated for a best Alternative Album Grammy in 2013. Rolling Stone mag put "Hot Knife" at no.12 in their top 50 songs of 2012.
