FKA twigs

Guess if someone actually owns the album they should be able to verify. I've ordered the deluxe vinyl, despite the groans of my hip pocket.

Grimes sounds (deliberately) cheap as hell while this is lush and expansive and perfectly produced. I don't understand why anyone is comparing them.

have you heard "go"?

Her first Ep, which i only heard for the first time a few weeks ago, definitely had an early Tricky vibe

OK, so a few weeks ago, I was wandering around Dawson's Heights (massive Mayan Temple-inspired Brutalist housing estate that hangs over South London like a battleship) sketching, and there was this song blasting out of someone's window, echoing off the concrete, which was the perfect soundtrack, all ghostly echoing Liz Fraser vocals with booming hollow trip-hop beats underneath. And I was asking around on Twitter, what the hell was this song I heard?

Bought the album and turns out it was indeed this.

But guys. C'mon. R&B? This is straight-up 4AD!

Seriously, on the first track, (and also on stuff like Closer) those vocal harmonies, I almost started giggling because it reminded me so much (in a good way) of medieval chant-based goth like Dead Can Dance / Miranda Sex Garden! (I have no idea if she's ~influenced~ by those artists, but to me, it sounds like she is mining the seams of early Baroque, the place where plainsong turns into polyphony, very early classical and "churchy" music.) Those kind of vocal swoops and "oh-oh!"s in an echo chamber totally remind me of early Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, His Name Is Alive, that kind of thing. But with South London beats bolted on underneath, in a really compelling and alien fusion that still totally works.

The other artist I can think of making this kind of music is Julianna Barwick. That kind of huge, cavernous, churchy polyphony with lots of airy, floaty space. Like, if you're approaching this thinking "R&B" you are going to be hugely disappointed and come out fuming like The Lex. That is not the slightest bit what this is. But if you come into this thinking "Julianna Barwick" or "Cocteau Twins with Night Bus beats" that's a heck of a lot closer to what's going on.

"The Knife"?!?! (No. Fever Ray maybe, with the more gothy side) "Grimes"? (again, 4AD) Bjork? What, coz she wears *princess leia braids*? You guys are just grabbing at straws with the ~ladyproducers~ here.

A bit of Julia Holter about her voice too. Anyway, LP1 is fucking amazing. Wasn't into the track that charted in the '13 poll but this album is something else.

is lex is the fucking slender man now or something

'Cocteau Twins with night bus beats' is a pretty good description but ~night bus beats~ are all about mopey solipsism whereas this is all about intense intimacy.

I think you're going too far the other way though, there is loads of R&B in the mix here, I don't know how you can listen to 'Two Weeks' without thinking of Ciara for example. But it's a part of the mix along with loads of other elements.

correct

good album

But yeah, equally, you wouldn't hear those folky modal melodies in any R&B that I can think of.

Just got tickets to see her play glasgow in october :)

On the is it or isn't it r&b, she said some interesting things herself in the Guardian recently:

We're in central London, in the pretty unerotic environs of a chain restaurant, but twigs remains obviously strange, a compact arrangement of eyes, biceps and goofy teeth. Those peepers grow and flash with irritation when I mention how much of the coverage of her music has seen her boxed alongside "alt-R&B" stars such as Banks, Kelela and SZA."It's just because I'm mixed race," she interjects. "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. I share certain sonic threads with classical music; my song Preface is like a hymn. So let's talk about that. If I was white and blonde and said I went to church all the time, you'd be talking about the 'choral aspect'. But you're not talking about that because I'm a mixed-race girl from south London." She gives me a look as if I've asked her to take the restaurant's bins out.

In an attempt to placate her, I ask if she feels singular. Her face softens. "Very. I love annoying sounds, beats, clicks. Kakakakaka!" Her hands wave violently around wisps of Afro that have escaped her do. "I don't see anyone else doing that now. It's got loud noises in there, the structures aren't typical, it's relentless. It's like punk; fuck alternative R&B!"

ime everyone would prefer to be "not in a genre"; some of these songs regardless work in the traditions of r&b

Haha no, Alex has come back and said he kinda likes it now! Slender Man averted.

I share certain sonic threads with classical music; my song Preface is like a hymn.

OK, now I'm glad that I was picking up on this, if she says it's in there deliberately. I wouldn't say folky, like DC (though I suppose it's that same medieval plainsong element that comes up in both (English) church music and folk music) but churchy.

The ~sonic textures~ are Night Bus-y because that's just the technology involved. I keep hearing trip-hop comparisons coming up, but that's because it's that pairing of the beats with wispy, ethereal vocals (thinking of Massive Attack working with Liz Fraser, Tracey Thorn) and also the warmth and intimacy rather than the desolation of the more technologically similar Night Bus-y stuff.

It's funny how 2 people can listen to the same thing and hear such different comparisons. Like, just listening to Two Weeks again, and I suddenly see what you mean by Ciara on those high super-soprano cooing noises. But the echo/reverb treatment on it made me think ethereal-goth. But that comes back to the idea of what signifiers actually *make* genre. (And the technology in that, like, how much of that 4AD-ethereal-goth sound was about a super-soprano feminine-ish voice run through reverb/delay units. And that sound is all over this record, flagging up "4AD" for me.)

...and she makes a really good point as to how much of assigning people to "genre" is down to visual cues (especially race and gender) rather than musical cues... #PostsVeryMuchInCharacter

in contentiously related news is anyone else deriving regular mild amusement from BANKS having a thing out called 'beggin for thread'

this is gonna be this year's album everyone loves and I don't get?

I guess large swaths of it are functionally similar to something, oh, Nan Vernon would release, except even more crystalline and glassy and sterile. but the "it's about SEX! except it's so glassy and sterile and British!" trope is one of my least favorite. plus, I don't care for Emile Haynie or Paul Epworth much

uh excuse u, "mmm this mbv album sounds like... a bag of sand" is a critical institution without national borders

Well as twigs-love picks up critical mass (LOL) of course "huh this sucks/IDGI" is going to be the exciting new contrarian stance to pose.

...and she makes a really good point as to how much of assigning people to "genre" is down to visual cues (especially race and gender) rather than musical cues... #PostsVeryMuchInCharacter

― are we shoegaze or are we dancer? (Branwell with an N), vrijdag 15 augustus 2014 15:05 (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Absolutely. And I'm very pleased she adressed this so straight-forward.

Listening to this for the first time. This is fuckin amazing. Detailed rewarding completely delicious soundworld.

i am listening to it again

'two weeks'/'hours' b2b mouthsuite is a coded holla at 1975 dude right

That's between you and your LJ slashfic community dude.

Textures apply to everything I do. Even within my music, I like smooth things, and then hard and fluffy things, all giving them their place to shine.

Yessss this is what I listen for in music and hearing her say this makes me v happy

i love this album so much

It's too bad she is playing Terminal 5 (the venue where acoustical detail and filigree go to die) but damn someone please take my old broke ass to this show

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.

I see and agree with all the comments you all are making about this, but also, come on, it's not like there's no predecessor or context for this. I have trouble buying that people were really hearing this blind and being like I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS IS?!?!? I know that's not really the point of the quote though.

I like the album a lot but there are a couple of tracks that get on my nerves. "Hours" is one, it comes back to the chorus too many times.

If you can't hear some slow jam R&B running through this, i'm assuming you haven't heard much slow jam R&B. it's certainly spacier but it's not as if there's no precedent there. dirty projectors is where my roulette wheel finally landed. pendulum (emphatically) / lights on / numbers are my high points, rest of the album never quite elevates for me.

some of the more out there dawn richards stuff isn't a million miles away from this

'two weeks'/'hours' b2b mouthsuite is a coded holla at 1975 dude right

makes me wish i were into "hours" which is kinda just impressively nothing imo

nothing is cool

that's what they tell me

'I've never heard anything like this before, it's not in a genre.'

lol I might start saying this

Well as twigs-love picks up critical mass (LOL) of course "huh this sucks/IDGI" is going to be the exciting new contrarian stance to pose.

― are we shoegaze or are we dancer? (Branwell with an N), Friday, August 15, 2014 9:48 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are people allowed to dislike an artist without being accused of taking an "exciting new stance"? FKA TWIGS IS BEST MUSICIAN AROUND, NO DISSENT ALLOWED

I dunno; you tell me whether British people are ~allowed to~ just listen to our music that comes from Britain, instead of being accused of fetishising it coz it's "glassy and sterile and BRITISH!" and we'll talk about what's a stance or not.

huh i thought the singles jukebox posse would dig this! i can never figure u crazy kids out
gonna listen to some Yes

I'm not saying everyone is like that but there are definitely undertones, and no, I'm not talking about you

to me this sounds like a poppier version of like post-meredith monk vocal stuff - i hear a little bit of charming hostess even (maybe) - though that doesn't really account for the production element, more for the vocal piece

ngh ngh ngh jfc nnnnggghhhhhh

― Come and Heave a Ho (darraghmac), Wednesday, August 13, 2014 8:35 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nm, i changed my mind. it doesn't really sound like that at all, but it's what i keep thinking about as i listen to it

just chiming in to echo the love. Did not expect that at all tbh - I've always enjoyed her videos (it's the only area where the Bjork comparison seems apt) but found the music itself a bit thin. This album is something else though, so much to lose yourself in. Right now it's that woozy bass on "Lights on".

I don't really get the "glassy and sterile" comment - Twigs is such a presence on this.

there's little to no use of dynamics, her voice sounds wispy and distant, all the songs are basically the same tempo, the instruments sound like ableton presets, it's heavily produced, and every song mines the same depressed/wistful emotional palette

although i have to say i read the lyrics online the other day and they're really great on paper, don't feel them as much when listening though

and her dancing is straight fire beautiful tbf

there's little to no use of dynamics, her voice sounds wispy and distant, all the songs are basically the same tempo, the instruments sound like ableton presets, it's heavily produced, and every song mines the same depressed/wistful emotional palette

^see that's kinda why i like it tbh

there's little to no use of dynamics

don't agree with this at all. or maybe it's true in the strict sense, but there's a great use of rhythmic density (constantly shifting from very dense to very sparse) that feels very dynamic and alive.

"Glassy and sterile" is just such a weird way to describe an album that most listeners have been noting for its warmth and it's sensuality? OK, there are moments that are so blatant in their desire that they make me squirm a bit, but at the same time the urgency feels really honest, emotionally. (I like music that focuses on women as sexual subject, rather than sexual object.) Distant I don't get, either. Wispy, sure, but there's so much of it that is so up in your ear like a tongue. I could understand the criticism that at times it's almost too sexual/sexualised to the point where it seems almost too obvious, but this whole distant / depressed / glassy / sterile is like... what? This album is *dripping* with desire.

I get that it is very much all of a mood, and all of a piece, sonically (though I agree with Jordan that the contrast of density with *space* provides the dynamics) but to me, the sonic cohesion just heightens its impact as an album, a work of art, the coherence and fully realised completeness of her vision. That might grate if it were longer, but it's short enough that the deliberate focused intensity is part of the appeal. It is a self-contained and cohesive world, by choice. Honestly, that heightens the appeal.

(But I suppose even just saying that plays into the "it's about SEX!" trope or something. Sigh. Because Sex is such an off-limits topic for pop music and all.)

see, I disagree; I think this is largely people reading things into the music from the lyrics that simply aren't there. goldenheart is a useful comparison point, because listening to something like "tug of war" or "frequency," *those* are dripping with desire, are very much subject as opposed to object and feel exciting to listen to. whereas listening to, say, "two weeks," the vocal tone, delivery and mood sounds like a high-school choral recital; you could functionally replace any dumb lyric about thighs or whatever with "ave maria" and have it come off exactly the same.

also, name one place where I have ever said sex was an off-limits topic for pop music. obvious or not! if anything, what this album needs is to be 1000% more obvious in its delivery.

Wow, choral recitals must have changed since I was at school!

Seriously, Goldenheart, as much as I love it, is over-long and over-blown and a thousand years long and sounds like a war (which is actually the point, I get that!) But that is a record it took me a long time to love, and repeated listenings while LP1 grabbed me on the first listen. It feels like a false equivalency to set up those two records because they do such different things.

If you don't like it, you know, you have the right to not like it, that's why there's chocolate and vanilla, but your criticisms just sound mystifying to someone who does like it. Like you've already decided just to hate it because it's ~British~ and ~trendy~ or whatever and you're just going to throw a bunch of adjectives and false equivalences at it to justify an instinctive dislike.