Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine

Forever the sullen girl, Fiona also seems to have become one with a certain humor. Her newest release, Extraordinary Machine, inspires contradictory imagery: that of a beatnik with a peppy, even somewhat chipper, backing track. A figure in black with a cigarette smoldering away in one hand (whether she actually smokes or not is immaterial here) and a microphone stand cradled in the other, accompanied by jazz but without all the frantic, frenetic pacing; a sultry flight of expression. In recent interviews, she has mentioned having a certain comfort in letting her craft take whatever path it’s going to, never trying to force it, never trying to escape it. It absorbs when it absorbs and wanes when it wanes.

As someone who’s always been a fan of her work, it’s easy to be impressed, but what strikes me most about Extraordinary Machine is how much I identify with it. I connect to the offbeat collaboration between bouncy and assiduous. The title track could be described by some as a “little engine that could” type of work, some evidence that we can go on and make it through. Fiona’s take on it, though, removes the sickeningly sweet overtones and just lets it be. Life is what it is — “Be kind to me or treat me mean / I’ll make the most of it, I’m an extraordinary machine” — but the rest of the song assures that not everyone handles that in the same way.

It’s hard to describe something clearly when you could easily just gush and get all fan-girl about it. I wake up with pieces of this CD stuck in my head, and they travel in and out through the day. I appreciate her honesty and ability to compartmentalize a feeling, as in the lyrics to “Tymps (the sick in the head song)”: “Those boon times, they went bust / My feet of clay, they dried to dust / The red isn’t the red we painted, it’s just rust.” They are also unflinchingly direct, as in “Parting Gift”: “I opened my eyes while you were kissing me once / More than once, and you looked as sincere as a dog / Just as sincere as a dog does, when it’s the food on your lips with which it’s in love.”

From start to finish, it absorbs, and although that may be expected, the expectation doesn’t prepare you for the first pluck of the strings or the first jangle of the piano. I love its easy juxtaposition.