Katherine, how does “FKA FKA Twigs” sound…?
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[6.25]
Britt Alderfer: For a while I wondered if I was in love with the idea of FKA Twigs more than her actual music. I always have to doubt myself as a consumer — it’s my prerogative — and there’s no denying that her sexual politics have fascinated me from the start. Her sensuality is direct and dead-serious, equal parts unease and anticipation; she is frank about ‘liking to watch’ and ‘liking to be watched’s roles in sex, as well as potential pain. I listened to her EP2 but put it aside for a while until I saw the video for “Papi Pacify“: black and white voyeurism, looped images of a couple’s intimacy and tension, all hands and throats and mouths. Time was drawn-out, pulled and stretched like taffy, eventually surrendering to fracture. Did you forget that the flip side of sex is always death? Who else has reminded you of that so powerfully? Since Marguerite Duras, even? This all sounds heavy, but as it turns out my enjoyment of “Two Weeks” is pretty simple, and FKA Twigs is no gimmick; her vision becomes more clear with every release. Her incorporation of the visual continues seamlessly but it is this song I keep returning to, again and again. The music stutters, the lyrics dig in like fingernails (“give me two weeks/you won’t recognize her”), her voice floats, sex will be had, at least in your dreams. I mean, “my thighs are apart/for when you’re ready to breathe in” is quite the invitation. Go on and see if you’re not pulled in after this. I dare you.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: Warren G. Harding erotica-core. Except when I want to listen to music where 75% of the premise is “women with British accents singing over synths about sex,” I listen to Client, who have more menace. Did you know they have a new album this year? The hype cycle’s treated them cruelly. FKA Twigs should take notice, and also change her damn stage name.
[5]
Anthony Easton: The strangling of avant tendencies into pop discourse has a long history, and having that task rest on estranged female vocals is one of its favorite methodologies. This doesn’t mean that FKA Twigs is bad at it; in fact, she is pretty amazing.
[8]
Thomas Inskeep: Remember how hot everyone was half a decade ago for Bat for Lashes? Exactly. And my review is no more reductive than this track. (Docked a point for the irritating “higher than a motherfucker” refrain.)
[4]
David Sheffieck: An undercurrent of menace established from the start by the vocal sample, lifted ever so slightly by a cooing, chanted vocal, deadened a bit by the punishing beat: it’s slightly off-putting, an engrossing sonic distillation of the lyric’s complicated, passionate-yet-torturous breakup fuck.
[8]
Jer Fairall: The lyric plays out a neat little drama of seduction, particularly in the way that the early “you say you’re lonely/I say you’ll think about it” sets an empathetic scene that nevertheless remains fraught with the potential for disappointment. Neither vocalist nor accompaniment carry any weight, though, and the result is listless where, in other hands (Tinashe’s, perhaps), this could have been something truly penetrating in just about every sense of the word.
[5]
Hazel Robinson: This is the filthiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I can’t stop listening to it. It’s 48 hour one-song-repeat doses of being pinned to self-sweaty bedsheets with your own frustration, the bass is all musk and the treble gasping, roiling moans. It’s predatory, it’s masturbatory, it’s dripping and I have to stop listening to it at work. I have to stop listening to it anywhere I’m not allowed to get naked, shimmy up someone and investigate ways to give each other goosebumps. I have to work out some way to actually get my mouth on this song and fuck it. I’m profoundly sorry to whoever ends up coming with me to see her next month.
[10]
Cédric Le Merrer: I’ve seen FKA Twigs’ performance on this compared to various other R&B performers from Aaliyah to Cassie, and sure, this track shares common ground with “Body Party.” But I also hear a lot of Kate Bush in some of her intonations. Am I the only one picking up on that? I really like it anyway, because I like simple dualistic oppositions in my music: very high vocals on low ebbing synth washes, pretty sounds and dirty lyrics.
[8]
Mallory O’Donnell: This is supposed to be sexy, right? Because I gotta tell you there really isn’t anything sexy about standing in place and having difficulty breathing.
[3]
Brad Shoup: Like a clenched fist thrown down a dark hallway. All these folks want to swipe hip-hop production, but no one thinks to nab a hook.
[3]
Megan Harrington: I don’t mind “Two Weeks” during its run time, though I nurse a lowkey desire for it to finally explode into something massive and undeniable. When it ends, it instantly evaporates from my brainwaves.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Minimalist post-house reminiscent of early ’00s Bjork. Tahliah Barnett, under the name FKA Twigs, pushes words through clenched teeth, not overcome by desire so much as anticipation. Coolness rules.
[6]