Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine — DualDisc music review
Be kind to me or treat me mean – I’ll make the most of it – I’m an extraordinary machine
In the created-appropriate din of the living room with only one lamp on is where I listened to the latest Fiona Apple album, but her voice sounds good in any instance, every possible port. Some music can only be deemed as “roadtrip tunes”, “dance music”, but hers satisfies any occasion. Case in point, the next day it’s with me in the car and it still sounds so good.. and we’ve been waiting for it for quite some time. Apple’s last album was released in 1999 and since then she’s had to overcome multiple setbacks. Apple actually left the project after a messy internet leak of 11 of her unfinished new songs. Rumors suggested that former producer Jon Brion’s post production perfectionism ruined their relationship and her songs. She eventually returned with two new producers on set. Ugly rumors about Sony and/or Apple withholding the album spawned the freefiona web project. Fans doubted Extraordinary Machine would ever be released, but here it is, in DualDisc format, no less.
The DualDisc features six live performances (with Jon Brion) where she’s candidly captured in her signature shy manner. There’s also the music video of a portly bush-bearded fellow lipsyncing ‘Not About Love’; the result is simultaneously hilarious and annoying, but that may be the point. Like her famous speech where she called the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards and the world we live in “bullshit”, so includes the world of music videos. 
The video is a little disappointing, but it’s nice to see a giggly new-found rebound attitude. I was hoping for a collective of her previous ultra-stylized videos, but that was wishful thinking and just not proper capitalism.
Playful, lilting scales and archipelagos take cues from classic b/w era (1920s-30s) to fill and echo in your ears, possibly influenced by her family history of cabaret crooners and flapper era dancers. Unusual background instruments we’ve heard behind Fiona before must’ve made for one awesome jam session. (Sadly –or fortunately for broadcast DJs– the extended instrumental interludes are nil on this album *snipsnip*). Oboes, marimbas, Wurlitzers (carousel calliope pipe organ), harmoniums (miniature bellow-pump free-reed organ possibly encouraged by ex-boyfriend P.T. Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love) help soften the blow of lyrics explaining the excruciating damnation of excusing oneself from love. Worse than dumping, worse than ignoring, it’s about making the other party feel just as bad. They never play like conventional breakup songs though. They’re original, thoughtful speeches, a few of which instantly stick and steer your memories: the Shirley Temple cum Danny Elfman cutesy title track, the silly roundabout clap-along ‘Tymps (the Sick in the Head Song)’, the paging dynamic fortissimo jolts in ‘Parting Gift’, the broad tempoed ‘Not About Love’.
Oddly, either we’ve been desensitized to Apple’s angst or else with the jumpbeat quirks as distractions we just can’t take it seriously. Powerful metaphors are unfortunately powderpuffed with quarternotes and staccato bridges with none of the edgy throbs of Tidal or When the Pawn. These are not the “damn you” swells from the past. Jon Brion’s absence is definitely noticable. Maybe it’s due to producers Mike Elizondo’s (hip-hop, worked with Dr. Dre) and Brian Kehew’s (electronica) reworking/dilution. A kinder, gentler Fiona even unfolds in ‘Better Version of Me’, uncharacteristically makes a plea for co-dependency in ‘Get Him Back’ and may take some getting used to, as a few tracks are immediately skip-tastic. Maybe she’s maturing and just not as angry anymore and no big deal; we still have her two previous albums to stomp and shriek out of our headphones to. The important thing is that Fiona Apple is a true artist, a true musician who luckily has made a true friend (hopefully the rumors are untrue and they’re still friends) in Jon Brion, who I feel is a smidgen of George Martin (Beatles producer) not only in his spot-on score presentation, but as talent guiding talent.
Overall, the entire experience of releasing Extraordinary Machine may be best summarized in ‘Parting Gift’’s lines: “We went on wholehearted/ It ended bad, but I love what we started.”
TRIVIA TIME: Jon Brion is an indie film darling and was nominated for Best Score Soundtrack Album Grammy for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Magnolia. Brion is Kanye West’s new producer.
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