Right Now

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).

When SOS came out, I was too edgy to give it a fair listen. At the beginning of 2024, I gave it a good listen and immediately fell in love with it. LANA builds on the gold mine that is SOS and extends it by even more vulnerability, rawness and musical excellence. It’s one of those albums that deserved all the attention they received. I realize this is more about SOS than LANA, but they’re one, aren’t they? Saturn to SOS flows amazingly. I’ll have to listen to it a couple more times before I can grasp it.

The Kendrick Lamar collab is actually not that great after all. I’m going to listen a third time, but it was nearly 5 minutes of mostly the same beats and instrumentation. The LoFi sounding guitar on a lot of the songs but especially on Diamond Boy is heaven. The laidback production and beats kind of remind me of The Tortured Poets Department.

The orchestration is done right. The LoFi vibe is amazing. Her voice and the realness in her lyrics is crazy. This addition is really good, however, it’s nothing like the R&B fused with rap/hip-hop that SOS so it’s unfair to call this a deluxe version of that album. This should be considered its own project.