Following the release of last year's The Idler Wheel, it only took Fiona Apple a few months to slip back into hibernation. But now, one particularly exciting item from the Idler Wheel cycle is here: the video for album closer "Hot Knife".

The clip is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Fiona's ex-boyfriend and the mind behind Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, The Master, etc. She told V magazine last year that they'd begun making the video together, but that Anderson was interrupted by other work before it was completed. It's finished now, and it fits in nicely with the catalogue of videos they've made together ("Paper Bag", "Fast As You Can", "Limp", more).

Fiona co-produced the video with Anderson; Brendan Walsh edited. It also features Fiona's sister, Jazz singer Maude Maggart, who sings on the track.

[Edited 7/24/13 20:43pm]

I like it! One of the songs I liked instantly off of The Idler Wheel...

Fiona always has cool videos. O'Salior is very underrated, it's beautifully shot. I love the song too.

Right on offthewall. Anything she does is just pretty much amazing. Her voice Is so damn touching. She really sings from the soul/heart. To quote Chris Isaak "Heart Full Of Soul". I wish she didn't take so damn long to release a CD.

Not a huge fan of the video but this is such a great song

Fiona Apple – “Hot Kn... Anderson)

by Tom Breihan

For a moment in the late ’90s and early ’00s, Fiona Apple and the film director Paul Thomas Anderson were maybe the most interesting famous-people couple on the planet. And Anderson directed a number of Apple’s videos: her “Across The Universe” cover, “Fast As You Can,” “Limp,” the staggering “Paper Bag.” The couple eventually broke up, and the last of those videos came out 13 years ago. But now they’ve reunited for Apple’s new “Hot Knife” video, which is also Anderson’s first music video in 11 years.

“Hot Knife” ended Apple’s The Idler Wheel…, our favorite album of last year, and it felt like a bomb dropped at the end of the record: Look, I can do this, too. It’s a sort of ecstatic Broadway standard, the sort of thing that will loop in your head all day if you hear it once in the morning. (Be warned.) For the video, Anderson films Apple playing a drum and singing, and other than some split-screen action with the singer’s sister, Maude Maggart, that’s pretty much all you see for the entire course of the video. But Apple is a spellbinding performer, and Anderson knows how to capture an indelible image, so the entire video is riveting.

I gotta say - I was never a Fiona Apple fan, but I'm now a fanatic. I think i had listened to her first album in the 90s (with everyone else thanks to Criminal being a hit), and wasn't particularly impressed.

I saw this video and was instantly hooked. It helped I had heard from reliable sources (The Music Snobs) that The Idler Wheel was one of the best albums of the last year. So, I gave it a shot on Spotify and LOVED it. I gradually went back in her catalogue, and found that I'm completely addicted to her music. I've downloaded bootlegs, videos, TV appearances, and can't stop listening!

I'm not sure I've been this addicted to an artist since Prince. If you haven't heard her music, give it a shot!