FKA twigs

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FKA twigs

FKA twigs

FKA twigs is the brain-child of Tahliah Barnett. Under her stage-name of FKA twigs (which I'll just refer to her as twigs from here-on-out) she has released three EP’s (2012’s EP1, 2013’s EP2, and 2015’s incredible M3LL155X EP)  and two albums (2014’s LP1 & 2019’s Magdalene). With someone with such a small catalogue, it's amazing how dense and rich this music is. Before Billie Eilish made the whole whisper-singer mainstream last year, twigs was already releasing down-tempo-trip-hop-whisper-sung music back in 2012. That is when she released her debut, EP1. twigs hqd been studying dance since the age of six, but deep down, she knew she always wanted to be a recording artist so she eventually left the dancing behind (in a way [dance has always been a big part of her project]) to focus on her music project. However, limiting to just a music project is doing it an injustice in labeling. It’s more of a visual-dancing-art project. Ever evolving but always interesting. I first came on board with her music when her debut album, 2014’s LP1 was released to critical acclaim. The album cover was so memorizing too, I just had to check it out. It reminded me of what would happen if you put Björk and Billie Holiday into a blender. With her debut album, Twigs finally became a recognizable artist. Equal parts: stylish, mysterious. She does it all: singer/ producer/ dancer/ director. Her art brings the beats along with her—weird bangers meant to challenge patrons of the most interesting nightclubs. In the video for “Water Me,” a song taken from her second EP, 2013’s EP2 (which she co-produced with the Venezuelan artist and Kanye West collaborator Arca,), her head ticks side to side like a metronome before digitally inflating like a balloon and leaking a single, globular tear… it’s all so trippy and beautiful and dark all at the same time. “Breathe,” contrasts Twigs’ spoken-word, baby-doll vocals with the sight of her smashing the windows of an SUV with a hammer. “Ache,” a supplicatory R&B stomper that begins with the line I’ll come when you ask me, slows down to violent gesticulations. Officially, she records as FKA Twigs, the FKA tacked on between her first EP and her second as a result of a legal issue with another artist. Barely anybody had heard of her when she self-released her debut EP, but when the video for “Hide” caught the attention of the music press in late 2012, she seemed the rare artist whose vision had arrived fully formed. The best way to describe twigs: a honeyed falsetto, warped sounds and pitch-bends until it hardly seems human. Synthesizers create convincing orchestral illusions with the sounds of strings and brass; drums hit on the offbeat or on a secondary meter entirely, often with the clarity and menace of a cocking gun. Twigs carefully created a mystique around her, but that mystique was soon bombarded by tabloids and flashes of camera lights when she began a (now ended) romance with Robert Pattinson of The Twilight Saga. After that romance ended she went into hiding for a little bit… but, boy, did she come back with a vengeance. First, in A$AP Rocky’s “Fukk Sleep” which flaunted her pole-dancing for the first time in the song’s video, her first-ever appearance as a featured guest. Her second album, 2019’s Magdalene (with the excellent lead single “Cellophane”) was her magnum opus. The album began to sonically take shape when she connected with composer (and one of my favorite DJ’s) Nicolas Jaar. “He’s a tremendous talent and quite an incredible producer,” she says. “I think the thing that struck me about him, besides all those wonderful qualities, is how much he listened and how emotionally intelligent [he was].” That last quality was important especially important to Twigs as she worked through her physical recovery after a serious health scare with serious surgeries. “It’s important that whoever is listening takes what they need and twists it,” she says. “It’s doesn’t really matter what [the songs] are about. The great thing about making music is that at some point it just doesn’t belong to you anymore.” 
Here's a live performance of twigs so you can get a sense of what this music sounds like live.
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FKA twigs