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Fiona Apple finally revs up 'Extraordinary Machine'
Fiona Apple 's third album--which was the subject of a grassroots campaign alleging that the set was complete, but that her label refused to release it--is ready to see the light of day.
The set, titled "Extraordinary Machine," is scheduled to reach stores Oct. 4, according to Epic Records. Early versions of the album's tracks, produced by Jon Brion, were leaked to the Internet over the last year as fans lobbied for the album's release, but Apple has since re-recorded most of the set with producers Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew.
"Now that my album is finally finished, I am very, very excited to have people hear what we did--I am so proud of it, and all of us who worked on it," Apple said in a press release.
Fans can now listen to two tracks from the new set, "O' Sailor" and "Parting Gift," by signing up for Apple's online mailing list. The same tracks will be available for download via Apple Computer's iTune's Music Store on Tuesday (8/16).
A fan-run website dubbed FreeFiona.com claimed last year that Epic rejected the Brion-produced version of "Extraordinary Machine" in 2003. At one point, the site encouraged Apple's supporters to "send something with an apple theme--a fake apple, a real apple, a photo of an apple, a piece of paper with an apple sticker, a sketch of an apple, even an apple pie--be creative!--to [Chairman and CEO] Andy Lack at Sony with a note attached."
Despite the campaign, Apple reportedly wasn't entirely happy with the original version of the album, and quietly re-worked much of it this year.
Epic Records' publicist, in email to liveDaily on Monday (8/15), said the notion that a complete version of "Extraordinary Machine" was turned in and rejected by Epic "is false, someone had fed the fans wrong information and they ran with it."
Apple's sophomore release, "When the Pawn," was issued in 1999. Her debut set, 1996's "Tidal," won the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Performance.
