A rare combination of cunning lyrics and quirky melodies, a Fiona Apple album is still what it used to be. In a world of crestfallen artists like Tori Amos and Billy Corgan this cannot be taken for granted. Actually I think it “let me down when it didn’t disappoint me”. Incredible machine sounds like her last two albums, with her own idiosyncrasies amplified. The tunes sound right, like they have always existed somewhere in the back of some collective mind and she just picked them with no effort.
Oh sailor - she is not even trying hard, the music and lyrics are so compatible, all she has to do is cite the words along - which of course only adds to the feeling to “Wabi” - that lonely yearning which some of her songs induce. There is also a feeling of dialog between song triplets from her three albums. Shadow boxer ->the way things are ->oh sailor, or criminal ->a mistake ->get him back, build your own formula etc.
“give us something familiar, something similar, that we know already” Sony probably requested. Well Fiona chose to rock the boat with some circus strings, elephant trumpets and uncompromising piano rhythm chords- still you’d have to be tone deaf not to release this album. “I’m better then fine” Apple sings. I agree.