FKA Twigs

Tahliah Barnett sings and co-produces as FKA Twigs on LP1, her first full-length. The texture and production style is very much bass music, but at a very low tempo. And there is (as is often pointed out) a lot of trip-hop mood. I've heard comparisons to Massive Attack, but I think a closer point of reference in some ways would be Tricky... this album feels sort of like a more hopeful and less oppressive "Pre-millenium Tension" (not that this doesn't have its share of gloom, it's just not as far in that direction). Also, whereas the famous Bristol trip-hop vocalists (Beth Gibbons, Tricky, 3D, Daddy G) all had weathered-sounding voices even when they were young, Twigs' singing is more traditionally pretty (though she's also more apt to bury it in effects than any of them were). Lots of ethereal vocals, lots of slow drums and slinky basslines, lots of lyrics about sex and love (some oblique and some not).

"If Tricky and Sade had a kid" is a crude but not entirely inaccurate summary.

RIYL: old trip-hop and modern R&Bish bass music.

No FCCs, our copy is edited.

1. short intro. ethereal choir-ish multi-tracked vocals to start, then a heavy glitchy beat kicks in.
2. a loping beat with woodblocks and a just bit of minimalist 80s movie score guitar for color. gradually accumulates keys and standup bass.
3. big kicks, trappy hihats and snares, pulsing midrange synth line. sustains a feeling of build up without just ratcheting up the number of elements or intensity of the elements that are there, so it doesn't wear out its welcome. does the abrupt ending thing to good effect. on an album where a lot of the material is about gettin it on, this is the song about gettin it on.
4. shimmery synth pads and ethereal vocals. then some kind of rhodes-y sounding keys. drums aren't super-heavy, kind of sound like beefed up then hollowed out acoustic drum samples. at times the drums remind me of jungle (at half speed), but at times they almost remind me of prefuse 73 (at half speed). a touch of dj screw at the end.
5. weird but catchy snare line followed by multi-tracked female vocals. then some soft cymbals, then slowly some synth lines. gets all filled out just before the 2:00 mark, then pretty quickly pares down again, though not quite all the way back. does the same again a couple times but keeps more each time, then stays all filled out. bits of synth horn and more keys in the background later on.
6. buzzy but slinky bassline, sort of like burial but slower and less fuzz. slow stuttery hip-hop drums, and actually the synths and the bits of echo-y guitar have some southern hip-hop flavor to them.
7. kicks, claps, and a slightly queasy synth. a not particularly intelligible bar of vocals, and then all that gets all chopped up for a while. then things straighten out again and we get clear lyrics ("was i just a number to you?"). things build up and pare down and build up and pare down, during which things also get all chopped up again a couple times.
8. ring mod on part of the drums, chorused vocals. eventually some bright but backgrounded filtered synth and a warm climbing bass line. bleepy keys and chirpy vocal samples in the background later on, as well as some chiptune-ish trills.
9. shimmery synth, clear vocals, loping rhythm where one of the hits is sampled and played backwards. bigger 808 style drums come and go.
10. the whole thing has a start-stop feel, with different elements kind of sputtering in and out of use. eventually stays all built up for a while. has some 80s r&b touches. her voice vs growling synth for just a bit at the end.


recommended: 2, 3, 6, 7, 10