Member Since: 1/1/2013
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The way each of FKA twigs’s songs capitalizes on her breathy coo, spreading it throughout the compositions as a source of sonic texture rather than a mere vehicle for meaning, is a move torn straight out of an R&B playbook written by the late Aaliyah and her producers at the turn of the millennium. Consequently, the apparently unanimous declaration that twigs is the second coming of Aaliyah makes a great deal of sense; certainly, twigs’s music sounds a lot like the kind of forward-thinking pop music Aaliyah might be making today, under the resurgent influence of ‘90s trip-hop and contemporary U.K. bass music. But listening to the sumptuous new single “Two Weeks,” from twigs’s glorious debut album, I think those widespread comparisons to the late R&B great feel inaccurate. Aaliyah’s evasive, subtle musical grammar broke new ground, but her content was never as actively, emphatically weird as the stuff twigs is covering these days. “Two Weeks” luxuriates in its oddness. In more than one figurative sense, it’s a song you can get lost in, and twigs (who seems most comfortable when she’s being evil) plays the siren beckoning us on; she frightens where Aaliyah soothes, because she presents the possibility that once you sink deeply enough into “Two Weeks,” you might never get out.
If the endless comparisons tell us anything, it’s that as much as twigs seems like an original, she has distinct musical heritage, and I’m of the opinion that it lies at least as much with Kate Bush – another singer whose style, like twigs’s and Aaliyah’s, could be described as simultaneously ethereal and vividly physical. “Two Weeks” captures the main quality that makes Bush’s early work some of pop’s most enduring and essential: the sensitive, sensuous exploration of sexual experience. None of Bush’s more obvious acolytes (Patrick Wolf, Bat For Lashes, et. al.) has approached the nuance, complexity, mysticism, and ambiguity that’s always made Bush’s perspective on sex compelling, and not for want of trying. I’ve never heard any pop music that’s quite managed to mimic Bush’s way of interrogating the power dynamics of sex while expressing ecstatic, spiritual, even worshipful delight in the carnal act itself. FKA twigs does all of those things on “Two Weeks.” “Feel your body closing, I can rip it open,” she whispers, and it’s many things at once: threat, boast, promise, offer, request, discovery. Its multivalent quality makes it a very Kate Bush-esque lyric, and if Bush were to sing it, she’d make sure each of those possibilities came through in the execution; twigs can do that, too. Aaliyah, whose thematic sensitivities weren’t as developed as her technique, probably could not have handled it so adroitly. It is astonishing vocal work.
Bush has a distinct aesthetic sensibility, one that was both of its era and unlike that of any of her peers. The same could be said of twigs, who self-produced “Two Weeks.” The song contains all of her very 2010s sonic trademarks: a minimal patter of a drum track, eerie echoes and vocal fragments, muscular synth tones, an undertow of out-of-frequency bass. Note that all of those elements were present in last year’s standout “Water Me,” produced not by twigs but by Kanye West collaborator Arca. Note that all of twigs’s videos are visually arresting and stylistically cohesive, whether directed by herself (the desert-bound “FKA twigs x inc.”) or another (Nabil is responsible for the mind**** that is the “Two Weeks” video). Note the cohesion between her album artwork. Note that “FKA twigs x inc.” sounded a lot more like “FKA twigs (feat. inc.).” It’s become increasingly clear that this is an artist who’s very willing to collaborate, but always on her own terms, bending others’ voices to suit her objectives rather than the other way around. Given how strong her work is – and make no mistake, “Two Weeks” is the best thing she’s done – it’s no surprise that with LP1, her singularity of vision and effective execution have conspired to make her a star.
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http://prettymuchamazing.com/feature...-summer-2014/2
Great read!
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