Don’t miss Sasha Frere-Jones’ review of the new Fiona Apple album:

“Tidal” was uneven. Apple was nineteen when she recorded it and had a teen-ager’s sense of drama, which sees the world ending whenever a relationship does; she did not yet know that “invade your demeanor” is a phrase that God never intended anyone to say out loud. But she had a lusciously capable voice, a unique sense of melody, and a percussive style at the piano—her main accompaniment. As a child, she taught herself to play piano chords by buying sheet music and translating guitar tablature into notes, a backward method with a happy result: she plays lots of satisfying clumps with her left hand and has little use for the twee right-hand flourishes that can destroy a good standard in a bad cabaret.

This photo (there are three—reload and you’ll see it) of Apple on her website is spooky; it’s like Mr. and Ms. American Gothic rolled into one. I don’t say Mrs. because the sainted Johanna Drucker taught us that since Grant Wood posed his sister and the town dentist for the painting, the two could just as easily be father and daughter as man and wife. Plus, she pointed out, they aren’t poor hick farmers; they’re dressed too nicely, &c. My own favorite Wood painting, which I still think is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen moving or still, is Parson Weems’ Fable.

Speaking of rock shows and ectatic revivals, the Decemberists had every blessed human in Webster Hall on their knees tonight, hushed and alert with joy. No kidding. Exchange:

Colin Meloy: How many struggling actors are out there tonight?
[Cheers]
Meloy: How many struggling English majors?
[Large roar]
Meloy: How many struggling botanists?
[Scattered chuckles]
Meloy: See, there aren’t any. Why aren’t you all botanists? They’re not struggling. You can put your money on the botanists.
Petra Haden: How many are just—struggling?
[Everyone]
[Meloy puts fist to heart and quips, but gently]