Back in 2018, British avant-pop star FKA Twigs was on the precipice of unleashing her sophomore studio album, 2019’s Magdalene. Perhaps her most complex work to date, on Magdalene she entered into a deep character study on the enigmatic Biblical figure, pulling from her a sort of fierce but mournful femininity that surged over the course of the album and inspired her to dedicate an entire year to learning how to pole dance. In an interview with I-d dissecting the album track by track, Twigs mused, “I used to laugh to myself about how, as a woman, your story is often attached to the narrative of a man. No matter what you’re doing or how great your work is, sometimes it’s as though you have to be attached to a man to be validated.” There’s a painful irony then that Magdalene would be received by way of the public discourse surrounding Twigs at the time of its release. Fans and critics alike scourged through every lyric and reference with a fine-tooth comb in search of some evidence that Magdalene was in fact a breakup record recounting the singer’s “unmeshing” from Robert Pattinson. And while all this speculation was ultimately refuted by Twigs’s own explanation of the record, it still cast the shadow of a man over what is otherwise an investigation into the architecture of a woman. Recently, Twigs found herself in a similar situation. The ongoing conversation for the past year has revolved around her turbulent split from Shia LaBeouf and allegations of his abuse. So when asked on a podcast in 2021 about the direction of her new music, Twigs made her intentions crystal clear, effectively erasing LaBeouf from the conversation before a single note was heard. “My next music is, ironically, a lot lighter than the usual music that I make… I spent so much time in darkness with him that in lockdown I’ve been missing my friends and going out, getting ready, and dancing. I’ve wanted to make music for the people closest to me that I love.”
A quick recap of Twigs’s catalogue will reveal how often she speaks of herself in relation to men. On tracks like I’m Your Doll or Papi Pacify, it was the dynamics of her body in a place of submission. On Water Me, Pendulum or fallen alien, she laments lost love and being “so lonely trying to be yours.” There’s always been a sort of nihilism to lyrics like “tell me why I act this way, tell me that I’ll change someday” (Give Up) that hinted toward a sadistic tendency. On CAPRISONGS, her latest mixtape, that all changes. The music that takes shape here celebrates her “journey back to myself through my amazing collaborators and friends,” released on Young & Atlantic Records in the midst of Capricorn season. Of course. Most immediately striking is how un-FKA Twigs the mixtape sounds. The breathy abstractions, slippery synth gymnastics, and rattling drum fills that have become synonymous with her sound recede on CAPRISONGS, clearing the shoreline for effortlessly cool trap, hopping highlife afrobeats, and smooth slow-burning R&B. It’s a clear departure, and likely the logic behind tagging CAPRISONGS as a mixtape rather than full blown album. It’s the most pop she’s ever sounded but also the most free, and it’s a revelation.
CAPRISONGS sees Twigs deftly in-tune with herself, more grounded and less oracular outside of her usual scope. “Hey I made you a mixtape, because when I feel you, I feel me and when I feel me, it feels good” she coos on the intro of Koreless produced ride the dragon, and her exuberance is palpable. These non-musical asides are returned to throughout CAPRISONGS, a device that also elicits Twigs’s sense of humour. The outro of hyperpop/Naijabeat hybrid pamplemousse plays out as a message from a fan asking about “that song with Dua Lipa,” demanding that it be released because they’re tired of “listening to it on loop,” while christi interlude pokes fun at the sort of millennial esoterica of Astrology.com that is also inherent to the FKA Twigs iconography. The same woman who staged a show about spiritual avatars of herself fighting over a magic crystal inserts an interlude of a thickly LA-accented astrologist reading her charts. It’s delightfully self-aware and indicative of Twigs’s growth. She’s finally at a place where she can stop taking herself too seriously. These little asides also take form as spoken affirmations or voice notes that intersect tracks as prologues and epilogues with the casual comfort and reassurance of banter with your best mate. That sense of comfort is key to CAPRISONGS. There’s a breeziness to Twigs here, or rather an ease, that is unfamiliar for her. Her twinkling falsetto is less fraught outside of, say, M3LL155X’s industrial distortion and the extra effervescence allows her the space to be dazzling and straight up fun. On oh my love, she’s almost unrecognisable. Here, she delivers a smooth-as-honey pop R&B performance, hitting Mariah-esque runs and speak-singing a repeated hook on the chorus. On Honda, she interpolates the flow of reggaeton rappers alongside Pa Salieu against a lush and shuddering afrobeat.
There’s sunny, brass inflected highlife on papi bones, featuring Shygirl outside of her usual bass’n’grime territory while on the mico-kuduro of minds of men, Twigs dances between crystalline falsetto and spoken word. The clever double-meaning of song title meta angel prefaces one of CAPRISONG’s standouts. The track intertwines experimentalist with pop star most distinctly, and despite flying dangerously close to Charli XCX’s autotuned sun, Angel is a moment for Twigs to explore the waters of contemporary pop trends from her point of view. The track opens with an Orbison-esque recording of a conversation between Twigs and friends, joyously exclaiming (or perhaps more accurately, manifesting) that “this is the year of greatness, bruv”. Tears In The Club featuring The Weeknd is CAPRISONG’s most straightforward track (produced with Arca), with Twigs playing with 2010’s R&B tropes. The bevy of collaborators on CAPRISONGS could easily have resulted in a bloated product, but the extensive guestlist furthers the overall house party energy that Twigs plays host to. Everyone sounds like they’re genuinely having a great time. Radiating “good vibes only” and sharing in Twigs’s process of catharsis, they mostly allow CAPRISONGS to play out like the group chat of a ride-or-die squad. Equally remarkable are the producers of CAPRISONGS. On paper, a team featuring the likes of Sega Bodega, Koreless and Arca should translate into a very different sounding record, but for CAPRISONGS they bend to the will of Twigs and Spain’s El Guincho, never allowing their own predispositions to inform the music. CAPRISONGS is not entirely outside of Twigs’s realm, though. Her weirdo instinct and beatnik writing approach can be felt on tracks like the lilting lightbeamers, or the flighting way she belts the chorus of careless which bears a striking resemblance to Hours.
Glossy and sun soaked, CAPRISONGS sees FKA Twigs post-rebirth and at a point where she feels more grounded in her identity than ever before. Allowing a sense of ease and “the universe will provide” sentimentality into her otherwise weighty discography is a breath of fresh air. While her work has typically ruminated on darker sensibilities, there’s always been a radiant joy about Twigs; when she dances, when she creates, when she speaks about her craft… she lets go. With CAPRISONGS, she’s finally letting go in the scope of her art and the FKA Twigs enigma, allowing that joy to permeate. Where Magdalene concluded with the desperate mourn of cellophane and a broken Twigs fixated and pining for her lost love, CAPRISONGS instead ends with a thank you to the people who helped heal her. “Cause you cared, I made it through today.” And with that FKA Twigs liberates herself, unmeshing from the narrative of the men around her. This is her story and hers alone.
See the music video for ride the dragon from CAPRISONGS below.
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