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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Watch: Fiona Apple - "Hot Knife"


A little more than a year after it has made it's way into the world, "Hot Knife" arguably my favorite track off Fiona Apple's The Idler Wheel... gets a music video. Remember The Master? Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson was tapped for Fiona Apple latest video and the results are visually quite appealing.

Playing off of the tracks many layers, the simply shot video basically takes the form of recreating the song from all its base elements. The opening shot features Apple playing the timpani so prominently featured, before slowly incorporating through the use of split screens of Apple and her sister's canon. The visual style feeds directly off of the track's ever growing build as more are more split screens are incorporated and you get a sense of just how many plates Apple has spinning in the air during "Hot Knife". Just when you think the whole thing is going to collapse on itself, everything reverts to normal, to a single shot of first sister Maude, then Apple before grinding to its eventual end.

One of my favorite visual treats was the sudden shift from black and white to a warm light-bathed Apple right as she smiled. A further reminder of the cathartic nature of "Hot Knife", the one track on The Idler Wheel... not tangled up in self-doubt or even self-analysis. 

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