lucky doubled … rhyme the cellar, cellar the rhyme xiv … where we palatte a sprightly sinewy tune delivering resonant notes of cinematic elementary wrapped in a signature cider-style effervescence … şerefe – enjoi

“Extraordinary Machine” — Fiona Apple (Extraordinary Machine, 2005)

Writers : Fiona Apple · · Producers : Jon Brion

:: Primer ::

:: so, Extraordinary Machine … first off, fio: bless up, living lyrical poetry … onward …

so, Extraordinary Machine first crossed the radar in one of those subtle-and-apparently-happenstance-but-consequentially-significant-and-wholly-aligned-beyond-mere-chance occasions … it was … august / september 2005, roundabout – so, freshman year of undergrad – and (in accord with a miscellany of cellared rhyme retrospectives from recent history) this tune (by way of eponymous album) acquainted consciousness by way of collegiate colleague recommendation, during one of a most many p2p-fueled music exchange bonding sessions …

at the time, i was vaguely familiar with fiona apple – more so familiar with fio the artistic identity, rather than directly with apple’s music anthology – on account of her distinct character, that signature style and/or apparent lens in/of lifestyle, and so too/then her music as natural progeny scion curating record memoranda of said life lived therein … so, all of that is to say: while i was aware of apple’s proximal existence and expressive modus operandi, i had yet to embark on a proper debutante dalliance with said artisan’s work …

which brings us back to the immediate primer premise: summer’s fall in the year of our lord 2005, and said circa’s emergence of Extraordinary Machine … while my point and plane of appleonian reference was novice at best in those days, my flatmates, general acquaintances, etc. were indomitable apple advocates – and, given the particular tension and pique proverbial salivation / actual anticipation during the album’s pre-release lead-in weeks, acolytes pro tempore … which, brings us to the bread and butter of said backstory …

the details are a bit hazy at present, but broadly speaking, those penultimate weeks/days of an infamously extended apple album drop were filled with revisitations, rediscoveries, reawakening, and empirically-backed revelry regarding all things fionanthology — primarily: surfing the interwebular and sorting through demos/leeks/interim drafts/grapevine samplings/etc. from the renowned jon brion sessions and rumored release-ready elizondo kehew sets … additionally, for me, it was a primer of (again, with some feeling) subtle, yet eventuatingly significant (motifs! themes! instant callbacks!) brick-and-mortar-sonic-scaffolding establishing proper introductory perspective on / illuminating perception into the particular alcove that is: fiona apple(’s (musical) work in the world) … e.g., freshman foray versing tidal, when the pawn…, etc. …

and so, in retrospective wake of said hazy uni daze … extraordinary machine, the proper world market ready release, dropped circa … october ‘05 ? … it felt fresh, organic, verdant, undertones of a certain gaia-style feel … then, and ever-evolutionary since … so, all of aforementioned riffwork is to primer pretense this most majestic tune of certain magisterial marvel …

and so, in the immediate wake of yet another apparent haze : let’s cellar said extraordinary rhythmic ::

:: On the Palatte · Profile ::

:: This one engages on the blink in lucid sensory suspense of … the mindful meditation and internatural process of a blossoming tea ceremony … as a ritual unfolding ( … unfurling ? ) and oracular occasion … even, and especially, if only in the casual company of one’s own late-afternoon self …

on the front … our flowering tea party christens decanter firmament in sauntering string procession … it feels like a rose-toned pachyderm family roaming the cumulonimbus billows of their emerald riverbank throne in kite like caprice … and with the joyous bellow of a beckoning bell hop, so the catalyst cue, a simple baptism at the crown of a jasmine bud drop … xenon levity … carefree gravity … our heretofore signature cosmoterraquatic linger in lucid suspense — but make it steady-striding ever-pacing over the river and through the game of quarry tread riding hood …

I certainly haven’t been shopping for any new shoes
And
I certainly haven’t been spreading myself around
I still only travel by foot and by foot it’s a slow climb
But I’m good at being uncomfortable so
I can’t stop changing all the time

and so, rising just beyond the trough of our collective soundwave, we enter into lyrical eddy … awaited dawn heralds understated wisdom of a child, once-gone, now reborn, in mahatma sphinx form … vibe-wise, this cadent delivery feels at copacetic home in its instrumental undercurrent, balancing tantamount tempo and sharing a certain tonality of precocious perspicacity … carouseling slides and kodak momentary asides in the philosophic roam of tortoise times studying abroad at aesop rock high …

I noticed that my opponent is always on the go
And
Won’t go slow, so’s not to focus, and I notice
He’ll hitch a ride with any guide, as long as
They go fast from whence he came
But he’s no good at being uncomfortable, so
He can’t stop staying exactly the same

it reads somewhere in the experiential of … a housewarming homecoming conversation with acquaintance company while pouring over a flower bed lotus tea reef centerpiece, savoring petit fours thought … roundtabling with a most motley crew of teddies, dolls, sundry stuffed residents of one’s own boudoir parlor zoo, and multi-faceted characters of an eclectic self’s cerebral neighborhood, the mainstay brigade of a creative mind … all animate shades of (and again, with some feeling) : signature whimsy … in the theme of : canon mementos captured in traverse of recent travels … a topographical retrospective …

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can’t help it, the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me, or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it,
I’m an extraordinary machine

and so, in conversession with said tea party companionship camaraderie … upon the wing-tipped waves of a most actualized virgo’s spot en pointe mantra manifesto … our inflorescent reintroduction to a signature self, reawakened and reclaimed … setting tones, skipping stones, exhuming and edifying tomes of a most scenic routed journey through the labyrinthine looking glass of self-reflection, checkered with rounded bouts of shadow matchboxing …

I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day
You deem me due to clean my view and be at peace and lay
I mean to prove I mean to move in my own way and say
I’ve been getting along for long before you came into the play

… as we enter the mid-palatte … submerge into steeping soliloquy of lush string-laden orchestration … where immersion catalyst awakens descanted efflorescing, as understated ariaphorisms blossom into cornucopia composition … jasmine aromatics … marigold undertones … verdant base notes yield a certain fresh levitation in herbal libation, elevating apple’s heretofore more loam-toned earthiness …

I am the baby of the family, it happens
So
Everybody cares and wears the sheeps’ clothes
While they chaperone
Curious,
you looking down your nose at me, while you appease
Courteous, to try and help
But let me set your mind at ease

finespun tapestries of floral arrangement move seamlessly, akin to some silk-spinning lyre or melody-weaving loom … curiosity in the lens of carnelian hues embarking upon primavera sounds of cherry blossom transit … into our full-steamed kettle falsetto bridge

Do I so worry you, you need to hurry to my side?
It’s very kind
But it’s to no avail; and I don’t want the bail
I promise you, everything will be just fine

and so, in the outpour wake of a penultimate push … onto our fairy tale finish … duclet chorus drop, sugarplum delicious … accenting in aural apertif, the beautiful simplicity in occasion of evolutionary revolutionary elevation revelation … cycles and seasons of conscious blossoming … in all of its apparent potpourri eccentricities … hanging gardens of idiosyncratic technique … orchestral submersion … amniotic accompaniment … buoying the proem and process of verve in vantage … and spirited source of extraordinary human elementary electricity ::

:: Pairings ::

:: so, this eight course oeuvre revolves in the proximal palatte realm of … our aforementioned thematic sensory profile motif: a blossoming tea party of one (give or take a complimentary couple of synchronously curious musovirtuosos) — the expound … the tea bulb being fi … and all accompanying accoutrements being, well, elemental aspects of our hostess artisan’s own atmosvironmental entirety … tl;dr: synoptic musical tapestry of apple mcafee-maggart’s bildungsroman in artesian spring bloom (featuring a pair of feature interludes!) — let’s first taste this space :

· ·

Rhyme Cellar : Extraordinary Machine : Pair’d Playlist :: · “Slow Like Honey” – Tidal · : · “Fast as You Can” – When the Pawn… · : · “Existential Dread” – Thundercat · : · “Extraordinary Machine” · : · “Every Single Night” – The Idler Wheel… · : · “Anything We Want” – [ibid.] · : · “Interlude 1” – Lauryn Hill · : · “On I Go” – Fetch the Bolt Cutters ·

Slow Like Honey … this one … i just felt was stalwart primer … something about the pure genomic genesis … primordial groove of it all … as a record of debutante release in context of career, public renown, and – more immediately – in relation to the song’s particular backstory … but fundamentally, at the most resonant root, this lyric – and, in immediate retrospect, said composition in its replete entirety – remains one of those once in life lines … cynosure locus center focus mantra memo for when you just need some perspective to balance out your place in / on this plane …

When I’m gone like yesterday
When I’m high like heaven
When I’m strong like music
‘Cause I’m slow like honey
And heavy with mood

story: meet satisfied ; rise: meet glorified — tidal, and wave … onward

Fast As You Can … where we ghost pepper the honey comb and kickstart the adventures of fiona appleread, chapter two, entitled: when the pawn hits the pivot he bpm spins 180 degrees … so, this one felt emblematic of that ricochet range so inherent to apple’s wheelhouse arsenal … the clockwork cavalcade of arhythmic cacophony in concert … flux capacitation … from a honey molasses mood’s slow and steady spins the churn to a more cayenne-infused liquid smoke hue rhapsodic barreling through rueful base notes …

I may be soft in your palm
But I’ll soon grow hungry for a fight
And I will not let you win
My pretty mouth will frame the phrases
That will disprove your faith in man

felt like it captured fiona’s certain sonic aesthetic sense of fine tuned frenetic bumble sting harmony in complimentary contrast to/with/from its particular progenitor … just wayside wondrous … onward

so, pretense on interlude the first : this palette slate, as a whole, in particular, curating this one was a bit more tenuo- * formative * – a bit more formative – in its format development … in that, the scope scape shifted from one plane to its polar, until the framework rubik’sed its way to this final-esque focus … originally, i imagined a standard, song-based locus profile … then that started feeling contrived and tense … so, iteration the second was more along the lines of fiona in five (takes) … but that felt … slightly off — proximal, but still off … then i stepped back and let everything breathe … returned to the draft desk … and let all of the pieces settle into their own scene … all of that is to say … something about fiona’s trajectory … or evolutionary artistic identity … always felt … performance artist’s artist … or docupop artist’s artist … or an individual artist in / of the creative community … so … i didn’t want to siphon or structure the pairings within an impenetrable monolith … but i wanted to curate from a more vessel with the wings, flagship with the fins, artist with compatriot confidants space … anyhaps … thus abstruced, onward

so, thundercat’s Existential Dread (without verbosing interpretation to the detriment of said initial work) … felt tantapneumatic, akin to a psychic bridge between physical bodies …

Sometimes, existential dread
Comes ringin’ through loud and clear
I’ll adjust and simply let go
I guess it is what it is (Is)
I’m not sure of what’s coming next
But I’ll be alright as long as I keep breathin’
I know I’ll be alright

within some abstract conceptual capacity … it felt … intuition’s interlude amidst extended epochal transit … but, then again, this, and thus, all just artisan argot … onward …

and so, from thundercat’s ray of lotus light amidst otherwise nihilistic provenance, we segue into revelation proclamation … from Existential Dread, so we reclaim the essential self of exceptional agency … in the record key of our signature centerpiece, Extraordinary Machine … onward

so, Every Single Night, in contextual wake of its extraordinary predecessor … felt like emerging from a newly discovered union in/of a reconciled self, only to enter : vice the extraordinary, versa said machine — the duality …

Every single night, I endure the flight
Of little wings of white-flamed butterflies in my brain
These ideas of mine percolate the mind
Trickle down the spine, swarm the belly, swellin’ to a blaze

That’s where the pain comes in like a second skeleton
Tryin’ to fit beneath the skin, I can’t fit the feelings in, oh

Every single night’s alight with my brain, brain

That what I am is what I am ’cause I does what I does
And maybe I’d relax, let my breast just bust open
My heart’s made of parts of all that surround me
And that’s why the devil just can’t get around me

Every single night’s alright, every single night’s a fight
And every single fight’s alright with my brain, brain

I just wanna feel everything

to wax and wane, the reunion and separation, of a twin and their flame (vice the versa, verse the vice, en perpetua, et cetera) … sonically, from lush jasmine high note flow of tea party whimsy, we ebb back into the loam-toned earthiness at the sonic embryonic base notation … and so … from “i just wanna feel everything …” the idler wheel’s stone rolls into …

My cheeks were reflecting the longest wavelength
My fan was folded up and grazing my forehead
And I kept touching my neck to guide your eye to where
I wanted you to kiss me when we find some time alone

My scars were reflecting the mist in your headlights
I look like a neon zebra shaking rain off her stripes
And the rivulets had you riveted to the places that
I wanted you to kiss me when we find some time alone

feels: on, omnibus — request, reception, acknowledge, actualize … pretty rad y’reckon? … so, the Every Single Night into Anything We Want chronolaboration was a rare instance of “either, or … but, why not ‘and’? — a voila!” split decision resolved in solidarity … so, there’s more to this particular selection story, but for now, let’s leave it a for the most part mystery … but / and, for the record, both records … just, marvels in musicianship as articulation of innerdimensional rhythmic viscera for the sake of honest consciousness of conditional — if not, at times, inherently conflicted — human experience, and the capacity to distill some sense of gallant truth in said vernacular vivisection, to salve the schism, to ameliorate alienation … but, anyhaps … onward

Interlude 1 … so, sort of somewhat parallel to the Existential interlude … lauryn here just … self-aware actualized articulation station …

You know, and so it’s been… it’s been… it actually hasn’t been a long time. It feels like a long time, but it hasn’t been a long time. Some miraculous things have happened in a short amount of time, and, I’m just very blessed to be able to be here today and to share with you some of the things I’ve learned.

I know some of it sounds almost cryptic and I been really just, just really… waiting for the patience and really trying to articulate where I’m coming from as simply as possible, so I’m working on that.

But… you know, I know, that you know that there’s… you know I know that God doesn’t lie and I know that He knows how to talk to the hearts of people better than anybody else, so I don’t worry about that, ‘cause whatever He relates to whomever is listening, that’s what supposed to be understood at that time, so it’s all good.

the space between idler and bolt cutters just felt … : ^ * thus * ^ … don’t really know why, can’t quite explain — but / and so, therein resides the beauty of said Interlude’s particular presence: to navigate said static by way of mused word … also, lauryn and fiona, for me, personally, very kindred lyrical poetesses in relation to one another’s cadent style and maybe just auric feel … the kind of language artists where it’s particularly humbling to feel resonance with, and to work through interpretation of, their work … that such peculiar work resonates in a way that so intrinsically compels interpretation at all … and so then, within that endeavor emerges a shared experience of expressed vulnerability … but / and again, at the locus, a pair of poets who revisit apparent imperfection in a manner that makes it feel okay to be human … so, somewhere along the rhyme … Interlude 1 … felt psyche soundtrack of the idler bolt cutter transit … onward

But, this is a song called “Oh Jerusalem” …

rounding out our makeshift take on a fionapple vade mecum, an impavid envoi from fio’s most recent epoch record album … fetch the bolt cutters’ On I Go … honestly, and again / as always … the anchor cynosure across pair’d palette selections is the sonic proximity … the rhythmic complimentary … the lunch table likeness … what vibes in alignment … so, On I Go just felt right in that realm of quasi-conceptual context … really, the rationale on narrative continuity arrived in retrospect … and, in that, the sense of rhythm – on the whole, as underscore, overture, and crosscurrent – the sense of tempo or momentum, in life … a certain signature stride … always in motion, but never quite passive programmed metronomic … there’s always a dynamic element to this particular caprice …

back to that in a bit, but asidenote in context of the immediate, in light of lauryn’s precedent … the Oh Jerusalem segue, just, understated synchrony in rear view 20/20 … so, On I Go, the backstory (in abbreviation), is fiona’s version of the vipassana chant she sang in jail … and now, back to the precedent’s prior …

but / and, so here … this one evokes, just that momentum … and a garland gait or gallivant’s traipse … effectually, On I Go sort of culminated in capstone crescendo, the overarching locomotive motif … the purpose-propelled pace in / of a passion’s passage …

On I go, not toward or away
Up until now it was day, next day
Up until now in a rush to prove
But now I only move to move

In the long run
If I get there in
In the long run (It could be alright)
It could be alright (If I get there in time)
In the long run
If I get there in (If I get there in time)
It could be alright (If I get there in time)
Be alright (If I get there in time)
In the long run

On I go, not toward or away
Up until now it was day, next day
Up until now in a rush to prove
But now I only move to move

… like honey, in a dream : alight … and scene … in cyclic reprise ::

· ·

:: Impressions ::

:: Let’s ebb cellar xiv to the shore with a few first and lasting impressions on the fly … fiona always just feels like the art in lyrical craft(s(wo)manship) … an artisan at the core … living the most primordial rhythm of the human condition … primitive in surface elementary, and yet so very erudite in effectual essential expression … conceptual and concrete … where here it reads as much a welcome homecoming to the dollhouse parlor in verse, as it does a thesis defense; as much blossoming tea party as term paper oratory … the elementary erudite …

on this latest lasting spin it felt somewhat printemps sprite steampunk with overtones of possible anachrony … its emblematic long pour timbre and our overarching scenery motif … the thermal whirlpool descent upon herbal cynosure, as memoirs of staircase wit ascend echelons of celestial presence ruminating in roundtable rotation … petals unfurling in pentameter … merrily merrily merrily sauntering astride said tea leaf reading rainbow … yonder window yoke of the cosmic egg … revelation in rearview introspection … lotus moments of tidal first taste indigo chakra imbibing actualizing tertiary grace … actualize awaken … conversation … orchestration … revelation … the intellectual awareness in/of reclaimed infinitesimal infantile perception …

but/and/so, to bring it back, in that, for a uni freshman me, resided root genesis, embryonic easter, to an entirely fresh and yet somehow quite inherently familiar plane within the music culture panorama … i don’t know, can’t quite explain … just musing ruminations on extraordinary machinations of intentional glitch solecism, curious human erratum … tonal textures of an akashic auteur heiress apparent’s epochauseric tapestry … marvelousynchairos ::