Sonically, ‘home with you’ is a tightly wound ball of rope slowly unraveling it begins with palpable tension as the chant-like delivery from ‘thousand eyes’ carries over – however, as it progresses, Tahliah’s words seem to flow more effortlessly until they’re eventually spilling all over the page. The track makes several observations about relationships, ranging from toxic codependency (“The more you burn away, the more the people earn from you / The more you pull away, the more that they depend on you”) to Barnett’s interesting choice to compare her own willingness to die for her loved ones to that of Mary Magdalene’s commitment to Jesus Christ.
Whereas ‘thousand eyes’ sounds more like a jarring overture than an actual song, ‘home with you’ swoops in with all of the warmth and vulnerability that was missing from its predecessor. It’s challenging – perhaps even alienating – but that’s what fans of FKA Twigs’ art come to the table for. The backdrop is mechanical, cold, and bare a canvas comprised of little more than the occasional clang or rickety echo. ‘thousand eyes’ is a bold choice as the opener – it’s the record’s second longest track and it relies primarily upon a series of chanted mantras. If LP1 was her breakthrough and M3LL155X was a necessary bridge for her to pinpoint her ideal formula, then Magdalene is FKA Twigs delivering a fusion of her best ideas and production qualities to date – her masterpiece.Īt just nine songs, Magdalene feels like only the best cuts were utilized. Interestingly, for as successful as LP1 was, the 2015 EP M3LL155X is what saw her achieve her artistic zenith and assume the form that we now witness with Magdalene – she’s darker than ever and the additional presence of glitchy, codified production adds a chaotic sense of contrast to her gorgeously smooth vocals. At its best, it could be considered an R&B landscape-altering piece – an album that would have a large impact on other artists within the genre for the remaining half of the decade.
LP1 is mostly to thank for her seizure of that platform, which took the slowly evolving sounds of her first two EPs and curated them to near-perfection. The roundabout point here is that whatever you consider FKA Twigs to be – R&B, electronic, trip-hop, “art pop” – Tahliah Barnett is a key influencer in what her peers do. Sometimes that spotlight only lasts for an album or two before someone more innovative knocks them off of their figurative pedestal it’s perpetually in flux. Every musical field is an elusive and constantly shifting set of paradigms, but at all times someone seems to serve as the figurehead for the movement. An oft-overlooked aspect of music is which artists truly have a voice in the direction and shaping of their genre.
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