FKA twigs

Immersing myself into the world of FKA twigs.

  1. FKA twigs

    I don’t know what’s with so many of my favorite artists turning into aliens in recent times, but I’m down as long as that music is serving. Eusexua, the title track, is what lured me into FKA twigs to begin with. I had given her a listen before, but her sound was so weird to me that I felt the songs fell short of satisfying my eardrums. I think that with Eusexua she has managed to balance her super artsy vocals with engaging beats that could bring her into the mainstream. Charli xcx conquered the summer, now it’s up to FKA twigs to conquer the winter.

    Now that Drums of Death is officially out, I’m so fucking excited for the full out release of this album. I was excited before and now I’m even more thrilled for what’s to come. I also saw that Arca had a collab with Addison Rae? So this kinda music is becoming mainstream as fuck which is a breath of fresh air in the stale pop scene. This year has been absolutely fire when it comes to music. Robert Birming’s quote is right: In times of chaos, culture always thrives.

    Drums of Death could be about a person who procrastinates dealing with life-central issues by overworking themselves. The electronic voice is a reminder that drowning in distraction won’t solve the problem; it will simply postpone dealing with it. The sounds and glitches most likely represent an out of body experience from the constant disconnect from reality this person experiences. They are working and doing meaningless things that nonetheless keep the mind busy that aren’t far from turning into an actual robot with software glitches (because robots are human made, thus imperfect).

  2. FKA twigs

    On this album, she bent genres once more. I love how she featured so many African artists or at least ones that are working with traditionally African music. The audio snippets of her talking with her friends truly lighten the mood. All in all, I enjoy this mixtape a lot.

  3. FKA twigs

    This record sounds to me like it is heavily influenced by R&B, but also church choir and acapella singing. This comes to no one’s surprise when the album is called Magdalene and bases its theme on Mary Magdalene’s persona as depicted in the Bible. Twigs incorporates these Renaissance choirs with electronic instrumentation in a way that is truly innovative and reminiscent of Arca’s production of Utopia by Björk.

    I thought I was reaching, but if the Wikipedia page says that her experimentation is reminiscent of Björk and Kate Bush, then it has to be. That’s what I’m hearing myself. I was so sure Arca must’ve contributed to the project directly, but apparently only indirectly at the very least. She became more widely known with the release of Björk’s Utopia in 2017 where she was featured on almost every track so she must’ve influenced FKA twigs.

    […] Magdalene, then, is a fucking revelation. FKA twigs’ first album in four years, and her best work by far, is as introspective as anything she’s written, but more obviously centers her voice as a conduit for plain emotion. Written during a publicly scrutinized relationship with a famously reluctant vampire, as well as a more private recovery from the removal of fibroids from her uterus, she has said she found solace and inspiration in the story of Mary Magdalene, among the New Testament’s most reviled and misunderstood character, whose complexities were rewritten by centuries of chauvinist churchmen into a fallen-woman side note in Jesus’ story. By locating herself in Magdalene’s lineage, twigs, a Catholic school alumnus, explores the ways deeply conservative expectations trammel women; in doing so, she locates a version of herself within these ancient and oppressive archetypes, upending and transcending them through the power of her songwriting and the sheer magnetic pull of her presence. — Pitchfork, 2019

  4. LP1
    FKA twigs

    The opener reminds me of early Grimes, especially the vocals in the intro. That isn’t to say twigs copied someone here, because she puts her spin on anything that inspires her and eventually gives birth to something totally new.

    This minimalist pop sound she’s using with minimal instrumentation while making heavy use of various frequencies of bass is a stark contrast to her sophomore MAGDALENE. She combines this minimalist instrumentation with very intense production throughout the chorus. Take the electric guitar sample or the car alarm for instance.

    This style of production is consistent throughout the album. On Two Weeks, she employs low-frequency synths that guide the entire song, but intensify during the chorus.

    Her sound is very distinctly her with everything she does and being able to see her career as a whole as a new listener is a privilege. I’ve always said we needed more innovation in pop music and it turns out I was just not looking for it properly.

FKA twigs is an album list curated by Artemis:

I’m known online as Artemis/Apollon (name choice is because I like the dichotomy of these two deities and feel drawn to them). I listen to a lot of music and even write about it sometimes. A lot of the stuff I listen to neither makes this site nor my blog, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. It’s all on my last.fm anyway.

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