Performer Notes

Personnel: Fiona Apple (vocals, piano, celesta, keyboard bass, percussion, loops, dancer); Seedy (guitar, bouzouki, autoharp, marimba, drums, percussion, dancer); Sebastian Steinberg (guitar, acoustic bass).
Audio Mixer: Dave Way.
Recording information: NBB Studio, New York, NY; Stanley Recordings, Venice, Los Feliz, CA.
Fiona Apple previewed three songs from her upcoming fourth studio album, which boasts a typically enigmatic title in The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw, And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, to a wildly enthusiastic audience at 2012's South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

Professional Reviews

Rolling Stone (p.74) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "The songs are intricately arranged but sonically stark, foregrounding Apple's piano and the stupendous drumming of Charley Drayton."

Entertainment Weekly (pp.59-60) - "Like Apple herself, it's highly confessional and creative and temperamental, and will probably make you fall crazy in love." -- Grade: A

Mojo (Publisher) (p.82) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Packing robust, bare-boned, often off-piste piano, double bass and percussion loop arrangements, it's a hyper-vivid and intensely musical affair..."