FKA twigs - LP1
Excerpt:
Quote:
I can proudly say LP1 was ahead of its time, to be honest. It wasn’t so commercialized. You had to really be a music lover, be a true fan of music and the love of being open to really appreciate that record. It’s just a special piece in FKA twig's body of work that will forever live on. The older the record gets the more crusty bottoms will come to appreciate it actually and check it out.
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Full Review:
Tahliah Barnett opens LP1 with a line from Sir Thomas Wyatt's sonnet "I Find No Peace," "I love another, and thus I hate myself." With this excerpt, "Preface" introduces the leading theme of the record—the relationship between love and lust. However, the opening track also introduces the sonic and emotive motifs present throughout LP1 with its breathy head-notes, distorted vocals, irregular beats, and sense of dread.
Barnett immediately develops the record's preeminent theme on the second track "Lights On." She connects
the carnality and physical vulnerability of sex to the emotional vulnerability between lovers. Conversely, Barnett copes with emotional isolation through self-pleasure on the ethereal "Kicks." While love and lust are throughly explored on LP1, they are not the only themes present. The offbeat "Video Girl" deals with identity while the elegiac "Pendulum" touches on rejection.
Some moments on the record are more readily accessible, see "Give Up" and "Two Weeks." However, even during the more experimental moments of the album, Barnett never loses her ear for melody. Her ability to balance chaos with structure, noise with silence, and lust with love is what makes LP1 a monumental debut.
Grade: A