Album Review - FKA Twigs, EP2

You may know Arca, one of the producers who helped with Kanye’s banger, Yeezus. You may know Young Turks, the avant-garde label home to the xx and Chairlift. Who you may not know (yet) is FKA Twigs, the newest addition to the Young Turks family who collaborated with Arca on EP2, the second of two EPs showcasing FKA Twigs’ dark, minimalist take on trip hop. The word “minimalist” doesn’t actually do justice to this music. FKA Twigs makes the xx sound like a jam band. The way her music uses negative space and contrast is unprecedented. Like some silent killer, FKA Twigs stops all of the air in the room with a few impossibly high, breathless notes, and then lets it move on in a whoosh of whomping bass.

The woman behind FKA Twigs is as shrouded and understated as her music. Although incredibly creative and strikingly beautiful, FKA Twigs isn’t exactly plastered on a Wikipedia page. As she said in one of her first interviews, “Whenever a new music artist comes out, everyone’s always so curious and wants to interview you and put you in this magazine or that magazine, but I didn’t want to get distracted. I’ve been writing for almost ten years and I just wanted that process to continue where I’m in the studio every single week.”

She has, it seems, remained committed to her professed low-profile lifestyle. In the same interview, one of her most personal statements was that her moniker is a nickname she had growing up, given because of the way her joints would crack and pop when stretched. She also revealed that she moved to London eight years ago at age seventeen from her home in Gloucestershire, England to pursue music and dance. Other than that, she’s a pretty mysterious girl. Her website uses a Tumblr platform and only features her eye-catching, sexually charged videos. Dance and art have manifested in the videos, making her music visually dynamic.

Beginning with “Water Me” in 2012 (it is re-released on EP2), the captivating, unsettling videos have unleashed in a slow string. She worked with Tom Beard in the most recent video for “Papi Pacify.” It is a beat-heavy song that contrarily works with very few beats, sort of like a fill-in-the-blank rhythm section. Sexual energy is evident when just listening, but the video brings forth the undertones of dark sadism that lurk.

“How’s That” shares a distorted tic-toc noise with “Water Me” that calls to mind the white rabbit with a pocket-watch from Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps it’s due to the transy nature of the EP. For the entire fifteen minutes of EP2, you might as well have fallen down the rabbit hole. It is otherworldly, and ready to dilate some pupils. The first half of “Ultraviolent” glides from a dark beat that grinds like sandpaper to a light, airy chorus reminiscent of Mariah Carey (minus the annoying floozy part). FKA Twigs isn’t afraid to completely destroy rules about music and how it should be structured. She puts in the most essential beats with vigor, and leaves the rest for you to find.

Other facets of FKA Twigs are unorthodox, such as how she’s chosen to release two EPs with Young Turks instead of a single album. But she is quite possibly a forerunner for artists who will release music in EP format only. A four-song EP is a small bite to chew, and it leaves us hungry for more.

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Caroline McDonald

My first memory is of singing Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” quietly to myself during preschool naptime. Perhaps it’s because I’m from Nashville where an instrument lives in every home, but music has gripped me for as long as I can remember.

After dabbling in many parts of the music industry—recording studios, PR, management, labels, publishing—I’m expanding into music journalism because I’m yet to find anything more rewarding that finding and sharing new music.

A longtime sucker for girls with guitars, my musical taste unabashedly follows the songwriting lineage of Dolly Parton and includes Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch, and Neko Case. But not to pigeonhole myself, my music love is big love that stretches from R.L. Burnside to Animal Collective to Lord Huron.

I’ve recently moved home to Nashville after living in Boston and Big Sur for several years. I’d forgotten how music pours onto the streets ten hours a day, seven days a week. I’m honored to share the creative explosion happening here. If your band is in the area or of the area, please reach out!