FKA twigs

I don't understand not being into "Closer" and "Give Up", PARTICULARLY "Give Up"

Closer is the one that always gets me, because of the shape-note harmonies.

look i feel like I'VE been misunderstood, so i'll have to answer on that other thread i guess, when i have some time, if this post doesn't cover it

"And yet think that this experience is unimportant, or not worth considering, or even (quoting goole) "who cares about that.""

that isn't what i meant and i don't think my post indicates that. the point is my, goole's, experience doesn't seem that important or interesting. the emotion brought out by music has a feeling of coming from outside the self or from non-linguistic sources, so tying them back into some personal similarity with my life (if that's what people mean by identification) isn't something i tend to do. certainly some music 'feels' closer to me than others, but how is that identification? rather than just liking it?

and i wasn't denying that this is important, or the being "represented" in a hierarchical world as you say isn't vital and tied up in body politics, that's all true. i was saying, people talk about identifying but i don't know what they mean when they say that -- the implied def's keep slipping around in this thread already. i don't think representation and identification are the same thing, exactly, are they?

x-post to goole, sorry if I misunderstood, gonna read you again and come back on that?

The feeling of distance and space (plus the alienness, the remoteness) of the production and delivery is what totally codes "ethereal baebe" here - and the interesting thing is first, the contrast between the distance/space/remoteness of the production and the warmth and intimacy of the content.

But the thing about the "ethereal baebe" was that she was always coded so *passive*. (My former housemate used to do a great ~ethereal baebe~ impression of hanging her head limply and singing "I'm tooo drugged to fiiiight yooouuu".) And part of the schtick here is the contrast between the expected passivity implied by taking the Submissive's position, and the fact that these lyrics actually end up almost aggressive in their pursuit of the desired object. Which, yeah, as I think katherine pointed out - this is almost a cliche. The cliche being, "ooh, in psychosexual dynamics, the submissive partner almost always ends up in control". But it's that I/you subject switch, which of these positions is on offer to you? Which one is the passive or active position? The submissive pursuer, or the dominant pursued?

sometimes i don't identify w/stuff because the ppl making it seem so far from my experience but whatever lyric might tap into something inexpressible or universal sadness

like danny says by the ramones:

Danny says we gotta go
Gotta go to Idaho
But we can't go surfin'
'Cause it's 20 below

like the ramones are far from me as surfing and idaho but i dunno i think about that lyric all the time

that isn't what i meant and i don't think my post indicates that. the point is my, goole's, experience doesn't seem that important or interesting. the emotion brought out by music has a feeling of coming from outside the self or from non-linguistic sources, so tying them back into some personal similarity with my life (if that's what people mean by identification) isn't something i tend to do. certainly some music 'feels' closer to me than others, but how is that identification? rather than just liking it?

I think this is what I was trying to get at with my addendum, where I started with identification as "I have felt like this" but also proceeds beyond that to "I could imagine feeling like this". It's kinda the process of being able to look through someone else's eyes, from their point of view.

And on one level, representation is important, because being able to see someone *like you* represented as an available subject position is really important.

But, on the other hand, one of the purposes of art, is to try to instil a sense of... emotional imagination. Of experiencing the subject position of someone unlike you, and being able to recognise their humanity, and recognise their experiences and emotions as real - and potentially ~identifying with~ (in the more nebulous sense) someone not like you.

It's this dual process that is why art is important, what art is *for*, really. That two-step process of identification - firstly seeing your subject position represented. And then again, learning to identify with someone unlike you, is really important in the formation of sympathy, empathy, compassion, all of those emotions and capabilities that get demoted in the "treat everything ~objectively~" approach (and not coincidentally, get coded as "feminine" in the weird gendering of emotions scheme.) I do think that learning to put yourself in the place of the "I" in a song is part of that formation of emotional imagination process.

It's just that, in this particular space, some people have to work harder to *find* art that mirrors them (while others have to work to find art that *doesn't* mirror them). This is a problem.

This album is good and gradually opening up to me, but I think the last three years of palid, arty, Internet-hyped R&B have numbed whatever "OMG" impact this might've made on me

even more thankful now that I have avoided most of the past three years of pallid, arty, Internet-hyped R&B now

This album is good and gradually opening up to me, but I think the last three years of palid, arty, Internet-hyped R&B have numbed whatever "OMG" impact this might've made on me

― Evan R, Wednesday, August 20, 2014 2:18 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol this is exactly why i haven't listened to this

cant think of a less interesting direction for crit music at this point

I wish this was arty! It's just pallid.

i dunno seems "arty"
who knows what that means tho

put it in the banned words file along with "angular"

it's kinda hopped up on goofballs compared to a lot of R&B that i hear at least, but i dunno maybe it's like a lot of stuff like deej says

though generally a slam, "pallid" seems a fair reflection of the breathy vocal approach, low impact beats, and hookless drift of the songwriting. where gothic ethereality meets post-burial beatmaking, the connotations become less negative anyway.

"arty" is harder to parse. i suppose it typically means, "not conventionally pop, not formally bound by genre, perhaps willfully <strange> or <difficult>." also suggests either sophistication or pretension. again, can see why folks might apply it here.

laurie anderson's music might just as fairly be called "arty and pallid", and i love laurie anderson, so...

"But this bag of sand is so baggy and sand-shaped!!!!"

What is "the other thread" ppl keep mentioning here?

Do You Identify With Lyrics, And Ifso, How?

ty

One unexpected thing I'm taking away from this album is a healthier respect for Paul Epworth's versatility.

He's got more than just an EP's worth of ideas

I just tried to like that post, I've got to get off of Facebook

current lyrical obsession: "I could kiss you for hours and not miss a thing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkK8g6FMEXE

one thing i'm gradually noticing is that music everyone else goes nuts for that i don't is often characterised by really spidery, skittery beats which i guess are complicated syncopated rhythms or something.

i wish there was more layered choral stuff on this album! it's growing on me though

xpost mtv played that video so much in 1998. EVEN WHEN I DREAM OF YOUUUUUUUUUUU

The headphones pro tip helped me a lot with this album.

i wish there was more layered choral stuff on this album!

Me too. That's one of my favourite things TBH. Someone please commission FKA Twigs to write an Opera, or an Oratio or something along those lines.

I also wish that

I love when she goes all demented-Enya on "Closer"

god yeah enya! that's totally a good comparison to some of the stuff they do w the layer vox

*enya awakes from unholy slumber*

This thing she did with dance group Wet Wipez is awesome - "Preface" remixed by Aphex and most definitely, "arty":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A43M0GJ0tA

I could watch her dance all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nGFNayjYrM

not actually remixed by Aphex btw, just a bad (and badly-phrased) comparison, sry about that

Holy shit, that Wet Wipez thing is probably the single most Goth thing I have ever watched in my life. So amazing. Waaaaaaahhhhhh. <3

i am listening to this album as a kind of dystopic inversion of grimes' utopian "visions".

I am listening to this album as if I only ever heard half of Grimes' album once

i am not listening to this album anymore

I am still listening to this album.

I listened to this album! Twice!

sometimes i am listening to this album
other times i'm not
i'm an enigma

areyoulisteningtofkatwigs.com

I keep listening to this album, but Two Weeks remains the always-coming-back-to-you-boo song.

I think this album is way boring

the "when I trust you we can do it with the lights on" is quoted in a lot of reviews, can't help but wonder if this is a sexually progressive or conservative statement, also, if you have sex in the morning does that count as sex with the lights on?

after listening to this a few times, i do like it a lot, though it does (willfully i imagine) mostly ignore songwriting dynamics as a few people have said, but i dont mind that. she does sound very much like a slightly mannered art school-ciara like how jessy lanza sounded like an art-aaliyah, so i could do with less use of that sort of ecstatic flutter she does so frequently (oddly, she also makes me think of maxwell - not saying she has the voice, but i keep getting flashbacks to lifetime, like shes memorised certain phrasing that she has now built into her arsenal of vocal effects/tipping points). does make me think that while i enjoy how she challenges journalists' perceptions of her based on race, the R&B-ness of the album (even as it quite obviously isnt straight R&B) can't really be denied. also, closer is an incredible song (and maybe the only/most 4ad sounding thing on here). makes me think a bit of salem and ooOOO (however you write it).

yeah, closer is my favorite song on the album too but i am a witch house apologist.

I don't really have a favorite at this point; sometimes I'm not in the mood to hear "Hours" or "Pendulum" but I still love them.

Thinking Pendulum is my fav

the rap bit in "Hours" is my favourite thing on this

okay the lyric that is currently haunting me is "Pull out the incisor/Give me two weeks/You won't recognize her"

watching "Marathon Man" with the narrator of this song must be decidedly odd