A gentle tumble of timpani opens the latest collaboration between Fiona Apple and cinematic maestro Paul Thomas Anderson. A departure from their previous videos together, the last of which was released some thirteen years ago, 'Hot Knife' is a riveting display of two artists who have honed their respective crafts to brilliant, elegant simplicity.

Fiona Apple's spellbinding performance is captured and beautifully photographed by a director who clearly knows how to pull the right strings to create a piece of film that is achingly full of soul. Sure, it's easy to point out that Apple and Anderson have a personal history together that went beyond just artistic collaboration, but reducing this video like that would be as crass and shortsighted as saying a work of modern cinema like There Will Be Blood is merely the result of casually flipping through a Sinclair novel.

It's simple, really. 'Hot Knife' is a master of cinema in the boundless playground of music videos. A true, contemporary auteur capable of luring incredible energy and spirit from the most basic foundations of the music video form.