It's no wonder FKA twigs evolved to be one of the 21st century's most consistently exciting pop trailblazers; her artistic voice and vision were fully formed and ironclad right from the genesis of her moniker: Twigs after the way her joints crack, with the FKA added after another act already using the name requested a change.
Always eager to lap up what the world has to offer, twigs went from opera and ballet lessons as a child in Cheltenham to wushu swordfighting and voguing for her cinematic music videos, and from being one of the most in demand backup dancers in South London to one of the most malleable and willing to explore voices of today’s music landscape.
Her debut album LP1 came as a total blindside from leftfield in 2014. Bringing the likes of Arca, Clams Casino, Devonté Hynes, Emile Haynie, and Sampha into her own productions, twigs united her folk and classical influences with the canon of R&B and pop to form a swirling avant garde electronic tapestry. Her soprano range, vulnerable yet gutsy, is poised on top of hymnal wisps, explosions and car alarms, and crisp steel snaps of beats.
It’s a pristine and faultless beginning from which all her later paths would spring, containing glimpses of her cathartic artpop metamorphosis on 2019’s MAGDALENE. Channelling torment into one of her most wondrous artistic statements to date, twigs enlisted Nicolas Jaar, Koreless, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Skrillex to expand beyond her musical boundaries. Vivid, mythical imagery is born from her lyrics, while instrumentation sears with burning passion and twinkles with glimmers of gold, weaving baroque beat odysseys into impressionist, ornate, and breathtaking sound design.
The eclectic taste twigs teased throughout her career comes to the fore on 2022 mixtape CAPRISONGS, her widest reaching and most collaborative work yet. With one foot wading in the mainstream and the other firmly planted in her dedication to soundplay, twigs marries esoteric astrology and a host of electronic styles with her penchant for pop songwriting. Those early ballet lessons reappear in the flourishing harps and piano arabesques decorating trap and dancehall beats, peppered across an energising journey through the UK’s dance music archives.
A completely new voice in pop music crystallised when FKA twigs entered the scene, which she now defines wholeheartedly with her constantly morphing musical auteurism.
