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Fetch the Bolt Cutters

2020 studio album by Fiona Apple

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ89226844 ↗
Source-derived summary

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. It was released on April 17, 2020, Apple's first release since The Idler Wheel... in 2012.

The album was recorded from 2015 to 2020, largely at Apple's home in Venice, Los Angeles. It was produced and performed by Apple alongside percussionist Amy Aileen Wood, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and multi-instrumentalist Davíd Garza. GarageBand was used for much of this recording, and Fiona Apple attributes the album's unedited vocals and long takes to her lack of expertise with the program.

Rooted in experimentation, the album is dominated by unconventional percussion including the use of found objects not originally intended as instruments. Apple described the result as "percussion orchestras". These industrial-like rhythms are contrasted against traditional melodies and some conventional instruments such as piano, and the upbeat songs often subvert traditional pop structures.

The album explores freedom from oppression; Apple identified its core message as: "Fetch the fucking bolt cutters and get yourself out of the situation you're in".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” is 2020 studio album by Fiona Apple. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fetch, Bolt and Cutters, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2020, 2012, 2015—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Fetch, Bolt and Cutters is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2020 studio album by Fiona Apple” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q89226844. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2012 and 2015.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Fetch the Bolt Cutters primary sources, Fetch the Bolt Cutters archive and Fetch research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.