FKA Twigs - M3LL155X (Video)

Over the summer we’ve caught FKA Twigs at two festivals, and whilst they were both superb it was the second of those, a mixture of performance art, ballet, theatre and gig at Glastonbury that will hold long in the memory. The picture above is taken from that performance.

Earlier this month Twigs released Figure 8, a song from her new EP and now she has revealed the whole EP, titled M3LL155X

To accompany the EP Twigs has joined the likes of iamamiwhoami in creating something far more sensational than your hum drum every day standard pop video, with a 16 minute piece that is provoking, compelling, fascinating and inexplicable. It is also totally brilliant – out-there alien pop music and art colliding head on. The first of the four pieces in the video, for Figure 8, has the same sense of creepiness as Chris Cunningham’s finest work (although all were self-directed by Twigs) and from there the films go into deeper, with sequences that include live sex dolls, pregnancy and weird catwalk shows in the forest. The pieces are described as "an aggressive statement conceptualising the process of feeling pregnant with pain, birthing creativity and liberation." 

With this work Twigs shows us all just how important great art of any sort from the leftfield is, for challenge, for thought, for being inspired. Allow a spare half hour for this, you’re going to need to watch it twice in a row.

FKA Twigs - M3LL155X (Video)

Albums of the Year 2014 #8 FKA Twigs - LP 1

Following two excellent debut Eps, LP1’s release found a host of music reviewers stumbling over themselves to lavish praise on it and then unsurprisingly it got the nod as a Mercury Prize nominee, although it failed to win. However for those who think that FKA Twigs was just the fashionable flavour of the month think again, for this record stands tall on its own merits and has sneakily invaded our listening space ever increasingly since its release.

What’s a little surprising is that none of the tracks from those 2 first EP’s are featured on the album, which given that a typical artist's debut long-player these days is nothing more than a collection of the first four or five singles and a few filler tracks, is impressive.

Tahliah Barnett’s (aka FKA Twigs) musical palette encompasses various shades of ever-shifting rhythms and warped electronic sounds, sometimes created by sampling and then manipulating other instruments. It bears some similarity to the sonic experimentation of albums by the likes of Bjork, Tricky and The Knife but with a nearly whispered and sensually-charged approach. It’s unsettling, not always accessible and those looking for traditional songs will be in the main sorely disappointed. However, it isn’t as revolutionary as you might expect given some of the hype that has been laid at her feet; in many ways LP1 is just one slightly more leftfield step away from much of today’s edgier contemporary pop.  

For those who want something that takes a little longer to get the head around, LP 1 offers much to enjoy and ponder over. From the opening Preface where she quotes from Sir Thomas Wyatt’s poem I Find no Peace: “I love another, and thus I hate myself,” to the closing Kicks where she sings of how she’s quite happy with masturbation over sex LP1 is a fluid, uneasy and languidly erotic body of work that's worth spending some time with.

FKA Twigs - Two Weeks

FKA Twigs - Video Girl (Video)

There’s no doubt that FKA Twigs LP has defined 2014. It's an unsettling and not always accessible piece of work that will disappoint those looking for traditional songs, but with its weird experimental programming and languid warped sonics has managed to sound both futuristic and very of the moment at the same time, capturing the attention of those who like something a little edgier than the average pop album.

It’s for these reasons that it came as no surprise to see LP1 as the bookies favourite to win the Mercury Prize today, even if she lost out eventually to Young Fathers (our own personal favourite alongside Kate Tempest's record).

To coincide with the prize Tahliah has released a new You Tube piece, directed by Kahlil Joseph, which finds her returning to the darkness of her earlier visual work for album track Video Girl. Watch her dancing and singing to a condemned prisoner on death row. Just like her music it takes a little longer than average to get your head around it but once you do, it's quite compelling. 

FKA Twigs - Video Girl (Video)

12 From '13 - Some Of The Best Songs Featured On Breaking More Waves This Year

We’re geting ready to say goodbye to 2013 as its sun begins to set. Before we do so, here are some 2013 blog related facts then some music:

1. This year we’ve uploaded close to 400 blog posts. 

2. 400 posts is quite a lot of words (the equivalent of a novel) and a lot of music (the equivalent of about 40 albums worth). 

3. If you had read and listened to everything we've posted in 2013, at a guess, it would have taken you about 45 hours of your life - the equivalent of a working week. 

4. Its difficult to quantify, but we reckon we've spent the equivalent of between 7 and 8 working weeks on Breaking More Waves this year (if you include listening to music that we may / may not include on the blog and other blog related activities such as emailing artists / labels and their representatives, a bit of social media stuff, but excluding gigs and festivals). Yet despite being quite time heavy, having to balance it against the day job, family etc, at no stage has it ever felt like work in terms of the pressures and responsibilities that our real day job places upon us. We've enjoyed everything that comes from writing Breaking More Waves, probably more so this year than any year before. 

5. We've seen a fair few well known blogs give up in 2013 due to the usual reasons of lack of motivation (see this post on Chromewaves for one example) or some that were on hiatus then vanished with no real public explanation (what did happen to The Recommender?). Then there were others that moved on to do other exciting things; our favourite girl on the block / in a field / up a mountain Flying With Anna closed down to open a new chapter (and blog) in her life as she set off on her travels. And so after 5 and a half years of Breaking More Waves is also stopping. Till tomorrow that is. We need a break. But 24 hours should be enough. See you at 8.30am on New Years Day?

And that's it. We’re closing our year by featuring 12 of our favourite (and therefore 'best') songs we've featured from 2013, each one in video form. For once, we 're providing no commentary on the individual tracks, we think we've said all we want to say for one year.

This isn’t a definitive list as we’ve chosen 1 song from each month’s worth of posts, meaning that on really good months a number of great songs have had to be sacrificed and some songs that we adore haven’t made the cut as they never had a video.

If you missed any of these gems we highly recommend you press play. The artists who have created these beauties deserve at least that.

We wish you a very happy New Year. We’ll be back tomorrow in 2014.

Twelve from thirteen = the ones.

Thank you for reading. 

January 

Indiana - Bound



February

Public Service Broadcasting - Signal 30



March

Lorde - Royals



April

Lana Del Rey - Young And Beautiful



May

John Newman - Love Me Again



June

Chvrches - Gun



July

London Grammar - Strong



August

Flyte - Over and Out



September

FKA Twigs - Papi Pacify



October

Mononoke - Alice



November

Wolf Alice - Blush



December

Laura Doggett - Sometimes

FKA Twigs - Papi Pacify (Video)

Tahliah Barnett just can’t make her mind up can she? First she was Twigs Paramour, then just plain old Twigs and now she’s become FKA Twigs. Does this mean that her first name is now FKA? That could be a bit awkward  it if you met her and tried to say her first name.

Taken from her EP2 released through Young Turks here is a new video and song. Don’t adjust the volume after the first few seconds – it’s meant to be silent.

Papi Pacify is another warped roll a spliff slo-mo electronic jam. It sounds slightly stoned, sensual and very late night, as much concerned with creating its own ambient cocoon of sound as it is being a pop tune. It also features a black and white video that depending on your perspective is either weird, beautiful, disturbing, sexual, innovative, artistic or freakily dark.

FKA Twigs - Papi Pacify