Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. It was released on April 17, 2020, Apple's first release since The Idler Wheel... in 2012.
The album was recorded from 2015 to 2020, largely at Apple's home in Venice, Los Angeles. It was produced and performed by Apple alongside percussionist Amy Aileen Wood, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and multi-instrumentalist Davíd Garza. GarageBand was used for much of this recording, and Fiona Apple attributes the album's unedited vocals and long takes to her lack of expertise with the program.
Rooted in experimentation, the album is dominated by unconventional percussion including the use of found objects not originally intended as instruments. Apple described the result as "percussion orchestras". These industrial-like rhythms are contrasted against traditional melodies and some conventional instruments such as piano, and the upbeat songs often subvert traditional pop structures.
The album explores freedom from oppression; Apple identified its core message as: "Fetch the fucking bolt cutters and get yourself out of the situation you're in". The title, a quote from TV series The Fall, reflects this idea. The album also discusses Apple's complex relationships with other women and other personal experiences, including bullying and sexual assault. It has nevertheless been referred to as Apple's most humorous album.
Fetch the Bolt Cutters was released during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many critics found its exploration of confinement timely. It received widespread acclaim from music critics, who described it as an instant classic, revolutionary, and Apple's best work to-date. The album was awarded Best Alternative Music Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, with "Shameika" winning Best Rock Performance. The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200; and number one on the US Top Album Sales, Top Alternative Albums, and Top Rock Albums, with 44,000 equivalent album units. It was her first album to peak at number one on an all-genre US album chart. It also charted in the top 15 in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Background and recording In 2012, after releasing The Idler Wheel..., Apple began conceptualizing a new album, considering a concept album based on her home in Venice Beach or the Pando tree cluster in Utah which is the largest known organism.
In February 2015, she began rehearsals for the album with band members Sebastian Steinberg, Amy Aileen Wood and Davíd Garza. They began writing and rehearsing in Apple's Venice Beach home studio, using home-made percussive objects and chanting as they marched around the house.
In July, they began recording the album, spending three weeks at the Sonic Ranch studio in rural Texas, where they recorded most of "Relay", "Ladies", "Cosmonauts" and "On I Go". Apple recalled that these sessions were often unproductive, with the band being distracted by magic mushrooms and films. They returned to Los Angeles, working on the material at Stanley Recordings. Apple decided that recording should relocate to her Venice Beach home studio, where they soon returned. She likened her house to "the womb of where I've developed into an adult", so she chose to record the album at home to "repay" the house. She elaborated on the house's presence in the album: "I really felt like it's an instrument in itself, it's the microphone: The house is the microphone, the house is the ambiance, the house is a member of the band". Further sessions for "Newspaper" and "Heavy Balloon" took place at engineer Dave Way's private studio, Waystation.
They recorded long takes consisting of instruments being hit against surfaces and objects; her vocals were unedited, and the album developed a highly percussive sound. The sessions at Apple's home were largely recorded with GarageBand. On the long, unedited takes, Apple commented: "I didn't even know how to edit it and make a take shorter, so each track is just this one long take, and if I made a mistake in it, well, I better just play over it and let that mistake work itself into it". This resulted in what Apple described as "percussion orchestras", especially on "Newspaper" and the title track.
By July 2019, Apple had begun mixing the album. In September, the process began to slow down, with Apple developing doubts about the album. At this time, the artist first mentioned work on her new project in an interview with Vulture, explaining that she was still working hard on her next album which should have been released "a million years ago" and was hoping to put it out in 2020. She also admitted to being reclusive due to ongoing recording sessions at her Venice Beach house.
In January 2020, she played the mixes to her band members, whose positive responses brought Apple back on track. In an interview that month, she said that the album process was in its final stages, with the only things left being "artwork and stuff". In March, she announced that she had finished recording.
Music and lyrics Fetch the Bolt Cutters sound is defined by percussion. The piano-playing typical to Apple's work is still evident, but takes a more percussive form. As well as drum sets and traditional percussion, the album features the use of found objects as percussion, such as a metal butterfly and the bones of Apple's deceased dog Janet. The experimental rhythms on the album evoke industrial music and are juxtaposed against more traditional melodies. Stereogums Tom Breihan argues that while percussive music is typically "built around the idea of dancing, of guiding and channeling the rhythms of the human body", the album instead "plays as a wild, feverish attempt to mirror the chaos that goes on in the human mind when it's at its most overheated". Apple has attributed the album's prominent use of percussion to a childhood habit, developed as a part of her obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which she would always walk rhythmically to a strict tempo.
The album has been described as an art pop record, and "the most sophisticated possible version" of bedroom pop. It has been noted for its experimental approach to pop music. Critics have noted its ambition and originality. Nevertheless, it has been compared to the works of Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Nina Simone, and Kate Bush, who is quoted on the title track. The album often rejects popular music's traditional verse-chorus structure. The unpredictable songs feature looped sections, sudden stops and tempo changes. It has been noted as less melancholy than Apple's past work, with the uptempo songs being described as "funny, angry, and at times triumphant". The album features frequent improvisation, as well as background noise such as the barking of dogs, largely as a result of its home recording.
On the album, Apple approached her voice as a musical instrument, commenting: "I have fun with my voice, but I'm not trying to make it pretty all the time. I'm not trying to convince anybody I'm a singer. It just turned out to be another instrument". Breihan noted that Apple demonstrates "a rapper's sense that words can be music", while The Guardians Laura Barton highlighted the intimacy of Apple's vocals: "half-conversational, half-self-mutters, allowing every scuff, breath and feral yelp". Jon Pareles of The New York Times found that "whether she's cooing with sarcastic solicitousness or rasping close to a scream, she articulates every word clearly, emoting but never losing control".
Lyrically, Apple identified the album's main theme as "not being afraid to speak", with Barton similarly recognizing "a refusal to be silenced". Apple later said that this was an oversimplification, elaborating that "it's about breaking out of whatever prison you've allowed yourself to live in", and pinpointing the message as: "Fetch the fucking bolt cutters and get yourself out of the situation you're in". She has said that writing the album helped free her of the ideas she had of herself, explaining that "this whole album, for me, has turned into the headache that I had inside of my head and now that it's released, it's like this pulse that now we can all share". Pareles found that the album explored "both past and present injuries: bullying, sexual assault, destructive mind games, romantic debacles, [Apple's] own fears and compulsions and the people who have taken advantage of them". The album explores freedom, with Breihan writing that "we can hear the euphoria of a great unburdening". The album has also been identified as Apple's most humorous album.
Another theme Apple explores on the album are her complex social relationships with other women. Apple commented that these relationships began to suffer in middle school, and the album features Apple trying to make peace with "the sorts of women that society has always deemed her 'competition'", such as subsequent girlfriends of her exes. Apple summarized this idea as "not letting men pit us against each other or keep us separate from each other so they can control the message".
Songs The opening track, "I Want You to Love Me", was initially addressed to a hypothetical lover, but was eventually influenced by Apple's relationship with writer Jonathan Ames, as well as by a period of meditation in 2010–11, at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, California. The latter experience is explored in the line "And I know when I go all my particles disband and disperse / and I'll be back in the pulse", which explores a breakthrough she achieved following a throbbing headache, where she witnessed "a pulsing space between the people at the retreat—a suggestion of something larger". "Shameika" is named after a girl who attended middle school with Apple. The song is based on an experience Apple recalled when she was rejected by a group of popular girls, after which "Shameika came up, and she was like, 'Why are you trying to sit with those girls? You have potential. The line, "Sebastian said I'm a good man in a storm", was inspired by an incident in Marfa, Texas where the band were almost arrested for cannabis possession. Bassist Sebastian Steinberg made the comment to Apple in response to how she handled the event.
The title track was one of the last songs recorded for the album, and came after the album already had its title. English model and actress Cara Delevingne provides background vocals; Apple chose Delevingne in part because her English accent matched that of Gillian Anderson's character in The Fall, from whom the title is quoted. The sound of barking dogs which appears at the end of the song comes from Apple's dog Mercy, Delevingne's dogs Leo and Alfie, and Zelda Hallman's dog Maddie. The track quotes Kate Bush's 1985 single "Running Up That Hill". The humorous "Under the Table" describes an antagonistic dinner party. Apple has said that it was informed by an expensive dinner she attended with "lots of bragging about things I wouldn't brag about". She continued that following an offensive comment made by one of the guests, "I called the guy out. And may have messed the dinner up a little bit. But I was right". She later added that one of the guests at the dinner was "a prominent figure of a streaming service". "Relay" features the line, "Evil is a relay sport, when the one who's burned turns to pass the torch", which Apple first wrote when she was aged 15. Apple explores her own resentments, some of which she has characterized as "funny" or "petty", including social media influencers in the line "I resent you presenting your life like a fucking propaganda brochure". The track is musically influenced by both cheerleading chants and R&B.