It’s Fiona Apple’s world, and we’re all just living in it. 

The twisty, heated “Hot Knife” is the latest Mountain Man release, in part of its ongoing cover series. The Fiona Apple was released in 2012 on Apple’s album, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do.  

“If we followed Questlove’s advice and made gratitude lists before we went to bed every night, Fiona Apple would be at the top every time,” the band wrote in a press release. “She tells the truth like no one else does. Thank you, Fiona Apple. We love you.”

The band’s previous covers have spanned the gamut from Kacey Musgraves and Wilco to Irvin Berlin and “Simple Gifts,” a traditional Shaker hymn from 1848. “Hot Knife” has been a concert cover favorite, though this is the first time a recording has been released. The incantatory harmony is spare, while still evoking that long-ago concert sound of bodies crowded around a microphone. 

Listen to “Hot Knife” below. 

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Sarah Edwards is culture editor of the INDY, covering cultural institutions and the arts in the Triangle. She joined the staff in 2019 and assumed her current role in 2020.