FKA twigs

This is definitely a bold clam xp

I think this one was a Clams Casino production.

nah he said on twitter that he didn't produce it.

http://twitter.com/clammyclams/status/481446543598579712

Just twigged (har har) that the vid is probably a response/take on Kanye's Power vid?

What are earlier examples?

http://twitter.com/clammyclams/status/481446543598579712

― festival culture (Jordan), Wednesday, June 25, 2014 7:43 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol, that's some shonky journalism by Pitchfork and a host of others then.

Annnd new interview

http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/06/meet-fka-twigs-musics-new-fashion-darling.html

"Two Weeks" has completely taken over my brain

basically I can't go more than 45 minutes without humming either this song or "Dark Horse"

^^ minus the Dark Horse part

"Two Weeks" has really changed the way I think about her - I hope the rest of the LP avoids the pallid and watery early songs (which I tried really hard to love, but just couldn't latch onto for whatever reason) and more full-bodied like the newest single. She seems like a pretty cool person in any case: http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/9460-fka-twigs/

I still think the songs on the eps are gorgeous and really can't comprehend how they're unlikeable—particularly "Water Me," which seems to be the one most scorned—but I'm looking forward to whatever her next move is.

leaked. if you need me, i'll be over here listening to this one on a loop for the next couple days.

this album is a real endorphin releaser.

i love "two weeks" and i think i also love "pendulum" but at this point i'm not convinced by the rest

I'm kind of floored by this tbh

The album is a big blur, but it's great.

This is a much more convincing artistic statement for me than the tracks I heard from the EPs without being substantially different; I don't know what is happening here that wasn't on the EPs but more of that, plz

For damn sure. It's a treat and works so damn well on a summer evening.

I've basically gone from thinking she was wildly overrated to being like...why are there not 1,000 new answers in this thread right now?

My favourite album from this year so far, I think.

am I the only 1 who reads this as "fucka twigs" in my mind?

Whoah on my first listen and this is super great. Portishead springs to mind + destiny's child or something I dunno but I like this a lot. I'm sure I heard the last EP but it didn't make much impression on me.

i guess i'm waiting to download the official version but based on the two singles this will be one of my fav albums of the year for sure

live at maida vale - http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ed2nc8#p0249zb1

apologies for tedious interview that precedes it

set starts at 4:49

ugh zane lowe is the worst

am I the only 1 who reads this as "fucka twigs" in my mind?

― DERE is no DERE DERE (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, August 6, 2014 5:25 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no

pendulum is quite good but i can't shake the feeling that i'm missing something in my core that allows me to get excited about this artist's work. as with kelela and SZA, i am impressed and enjoy the songs but i couldn't remember anything enough to hum them to save my life.

^^^ exactly how i felt about twigs before this album.

Kelela and twigs I think have far more focussed and refined aesthetics than SZA who I feel like is figuring herself out still - the album was sort of all over the place with a couple of gems. ("Julia", mostly).

I listened with fairly low expectations and this is really, really good, hairs-on-back-of-neck good in places.

All the "it's really about the producer" stuff upthread is revealed as cobblers by this point. With all the names knocking around - Arca, Dev Hynes, Paul Epworth, maybe Clams Casino - it's remarkably consistent in sound and aesthetic leaving you in little doubt that the person who's actually driving things is her. As opposed to other hyped new artists where the debut sounds like a bet-hedging grab-bag of different approaches.

And so many of these tracks SOUND fantastic, like pop songs stretched out until their component parts are miles apart, and then making maximum use of that space. I'm trying to work out why I find this all so affecting, she doesn't have a particularly great voice or what you'd call presence (other than in a kind of airy seductive ghost way) but her voice ties everything together perfectly, you can't imagine this working without her.

Terrible fucking name by the way.

I don't like the name either but I liked her explanation when I interviewed her: "I like the masculine letters. It sounds like a boy’s computer game. A sergeant has to save people. FKA twigs on a mission! FKA twigs do you read me? Copy that!" Then she started moving her arms like a game character running. She's quite odd.

The record is wonderful. At first I thought it was all just a beautiful blur but then I started listening to tracks in isolation and the different strengths and idiosyncracies come out. Two Weeks is one of my songs of the year.

Yeah it all seems kind of samey but then you pay attention and start to realise how much each track changes as it goes along, all these evolving shapes and sounds in the background.

Hate the first 15 seconds of Lights On though. Maybe they had the Pitchfork audience in mind and decided to include a rythmically inept guitar figure right at the beginning just to reassure them.

i love all kinds of sounds i could never hum to save my life

With all the names knocking around - Arca, Dev Hynes, Paul Epworth, maybe Clams Casino - it's remarkably consistent in sound and aesthetic leaving you in little doubt that the person who's actually driving things is her.

sounds like she produced a lot of it herself as well?

Yeah I think so.

i love all kinds of sounds i could never hum to save my life
― °ㅇ๐ْ ° (gr8080)

loving this. earnestly looking forward to lex explaining why we're listening to the wrong thing

I'm actually having quite a lot of trouble hearing this as an R&B album in any way, obviously there is loads of R&B influence in there but a lot of the time the melodies just don't feel like R&B melodies, there's this odd kind of English folkishness to some of the vocal lines. It's a weird blend but she makes it work.

I don't think it really has any pretensions of being "an R&B album", so to speak - it's much closer to Homogenic than Aaliyah.

Yeah, I'd be wary of falling into the Santigold trap here

i found myself humming the vocal melody to 'pendulum' in the shower this morning tbh

"When I first released music and no one knew what I looked like, I would read comments like: 'I've never heard anything like this before, it's not in a genre.' And then my picture came out six months later, now she's an R&B singer.. "

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/09/fka-twigs-two-weeks-lp1

Bingo.

Interesting that that quote appears in an article that also contains "Her hands wave violently around wisps of Afro that have escaped her do," and "Growing up in Gloucester as the only mixed-race girl in her Catholic school, a natural rhythm propelled her to childhood classes and through to an eventual career throwing shapes for pop stars".

Ugh son

Never saw it as an R&B album, or R&B artist for that matter. Lights Out and Kicks are my highlights so far.

Actually I've had Kicks on repeat for a while now.

i don't think i'd call this r&b but it's not so far out of that lane... it's sorta ambient slow jammy shit. detwangified mazzy star with more weed and a bulletproof soul.

listened to what i could find on US spotify on the way in to work tonight: two recent singles & EP2. i'd watched the "two weeks" & "water me" videos a little while back, spun EP2 at some point earlier this year, but tbh, nothing had stuck so clearly in my mind as the associated images of twigs herself (LP1 art has to be in the running for album cover of the year).

turns out, given some time, volume & attention, that "two weeks" is magnificent. not quite catchy enough for mainstream pop (is it?), but fascinating lyrics, voice & production. played it three or four times in a row and am looking forward to rest of the album. can understand the peter gabriel comparisons in relation to "pendulum" and some of the EP stuff, obv bridge point being "don't give up", maybe the so era in general. not the sort of thing i'd probably ever hear absent the attention hereabouts, so, as usual, thx, ILX.

I'm the opposite, I loved Magdalene with all its Kate Bush swoops. I think this is fine, a couple of really good tracks.

Same, I really like the mixtape but Magdalene was a classic for her. And unlike the early Arca eps it had a pretty traditional palette, it was mostly piano-based (but treated in a super modern way imo)!

New *mixtape

A question because I am old. How is this NOT an album?

I think it's just something people say when they release an album but want to deemphasize its importance in their canon. Maybe they didn't take as much time as they would with an 'album', or maybe it's because they don't want to do the full album-cycle work of touring and promotion, or maybe they just didn't clear all the samples? Idk. It's pretty clearly an album, but I get if she wants to convey that it's not the serious follow-up to Magdalene that is yet to come.

mixtape = EP minus quality control

Lol that's a much better explanation

Sounds good no matter what it is called

xp I prefer your explanation, Jordan

Mixtapes are often cohesive full length efforts, stylistically thematic, and some can be incredible (Clipse's We Got It 4 Cheap series, Kehlani's You Should Be Here, Weeknd's House of Balloons, etc).

But they aren't canonical, often lack singles and tour support, sample clearing, big name production, etc. It's largely divorced from a mixtape's origins of homemade cassette tapes with a cohesive mix of tracks/raps/songs tied together on top of a bunch of hodge podge beats. Honestly when I think of an actual "mix tape" I think more of turntablists like Q-Bert or a DJ mix. Pop mix tapes feel more like full length "demos".

these days it usually means it's an early project being given away for free to build hype (not that the 'free' part means a lot in the modern streaming era), or the label doesn't want to give it the same sort of promotional budget, or it's a more casual stopgap release not intended to be the 'proper' follow-up release. rare for any of these to get a physical release

here it seems it's more like the third? it's kinda silly to make the distinction at all these days really

In non-music news. Can't she just play the Crow instead?

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/fka-twigs-bill-skarsgard-crow-reboot-1235124947/

That would be better, although I'm still hoping for the FKA Twigs as Highlander reboot.

Excellent Briana Younger feature.

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/fka-twigs-interview

Good story. Interesting how she first went to LA to learn more about krumping from the originators.