Idle days

PHOTO: Sony Music

IF YOU are wondering what Fiona Apple did in the seven years between albums, the answer could be: Housework.

After a much buzzed-about return to the stage at the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, in March, the 34-year-old is back with The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, the arduously-named but critically well-received album that follows 2005’s Extraordinary Machine.

The husky-voiced US singer-songwriter, who broke out with the 1997 hit Criminal, was rumoured to have let her long-standing problems with stage fright hold her back from returning to performing.

While Apple has admitted to battling obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), she recently expounded on how housekeeping kept her busy for most of the time she was away.