10 Bizarre Recording Techniques Used On Famous Records

10. Fetch The Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple

There aren't many contemporary women singer-songwriters more successful or celebrated than Fiona Apple. Ever since her debut, 1996's Tidal, the multiple-Grammy-winner has proven herself to be amongst the most imaginative and distinctive of artists, willing to take risks in remaining steadfastly singular. With her fifth studio album, 2020's Fetch The Bolt Cutters, she continued to explore new ground.

Apple chose to record the bulk of the album at her Venice Beach home, positioning the house itself as a vital part of the process. Says Apple: "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.”

The singer chose to capture the music using Apple's (the company) GarageBand software, forcing her to adopt a decidedly different approach. "I didn't even know how to edit it and make a take shorter,” the singer observed, “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 deliberate, one-take approach, plus the metaphorical and literal use of environment-as-instrument (with ambient sounds left in) make Fetch The Bolt Cutters the singer's most inventive album in a highly inventive catalogue.