Despite many comparisons, FKA Twigs is a capital A artist
Review of her 2022 mixtape CAPRISONGS
FKA Twigs — CAPRISONGS
Released January 14, 2022
Another first time diving in and really listening to an artist. I had heard of this artist and I already knew “oh my love,” but honestly, I can’t remember how or where I first heard it. In any case, woohoo for expanding our musical horizons!
I was surprised to find out this wasn’t an album at all, but a mixtape. This is made apparent in the opening track “ride the dragon” in which we hear the click of the tape being put on and the first words Twigs says are “Hey, I made you a mixtape.” At :55, the tape clicks again and the track totally changes, creating the effect of abruptly changing radio stations. As opposed to an album that’s expected to follow a narrative and cohesive sound, the eclectic nature of this project makes all the more sense with that mixtape distinction.
However, for this being a mixtape and supposing to have an eclectic, hodge podge sound, I think this is one of the more cohesive sounding projects I’ve listened to. I think that more so speaks to the strength of Twigs’ creative vision. Anything she does is going to have an element of cohesion just by the very nature of coming from her and her direction.
Favorites from this mixtape are “tears in the club,” “oh my love,” “jealousy,” “careless,” and “thank you song.”
I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t also include that the reason I know of this artist and the reason I originally added this album to my list because of her relationship with Matty Healy of the 1975. I find it is often through artists I’m already familiar with and am a fan of that I find new artists, as is the case here. I almost didn’t want to include that I came to know of her through him because I didn’t want to talk about him in relation to her or this project, which to me feels like such a work of fine art, more so than any other album I’ve listened to so far. I had this feeling before, but listening to this album solidified for me that Twigs is a capital A artist and to diminish this project by making it too much about her partner at the time would be insulting. I know that she has specifically spoken about this and not wanting her work to be tied to her personal love life and I want to respect her wishes, but even if she hadn’t explicitly said that, her work should be evaluated on its own merits and not in relation to any romantic partner. But at the same time, to not mention Healy at all would be dishonest, particularly when I believe there are moments to do so that are musically relevant. Of course she, and every artist, has the right to have their work considered as it is, and not in relation to their personal or romantic lives. And of course we know this disproportionately affects women artists because the public is so deeply, even parasocially, interested in their personal lives. On the other hand, we have never known more about the personal lives of celebrities and artists because of social media, blind items, and more “traditional” paparazzi, and I think it is very human for us to try to connect dots between lyrics we’re hearing or reading and headlines we’ve seen. There are absolutely individuals who take their interpretations too far and there are scenarios where this crosses a line and becomes something more insidious than mere chatter, and we’ve seen this play out to the extreme. In light of recent conversations about another artist whose lyrics do invite such discussion of their personal lives, I do not believe we should bring up these real life people in order to sensationalize, but only to contextualize, which is what I hope to do here. There are still boundaries that need to be upheld so that the work can be the work and artists don’t feel like they are being reduced to a character in a soap opera.
As promised, I’m only mentioning Matty Healy here for the parallels I heard between this project and work from the 1975. Healy lends his background vocals on “pamplemousse,” a track that lyrically tackles the theme of internet dating, which did make me think of the 1975’s album A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships that takes on a similar lyrical theme. The final seconds on “caprisongs interlude” which includes a bark from Twigs’ dog Solo sounds similar to final seconds on the title track “the 1975” from the band’s debut album. Additionally, the production on track 13 “minds of men,” sounds like the song would not be out of place on the 1975’s Notes on a Conditional Form, which also features backing vocals from Twigs on a few tracks. I’m not trying to make a case for Twigs having inspired Notes or vice versa, I’m merely positing the idea that Twigs and Healy, for having been in a romantic relationship during the creation of both of these projects, might have informed or had ideas bleed over into one another’s projects.
But those aren’t the only parallels to be found. There are also moments on this project that reminded me of Talking Heads and classic Prince.
Track 12 “careless” is the slowed down moment of the mixtape, her version of a heart revealing ballad. Something about the instrumentation at the beginning and again in the middle immediately make me think of “This is the Place” by the Talking Heads, while track 6, “pamplemousse,” briefly brought to my jukebox brain the tune of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U,” particularly the “I’m not your lover/I’m not your friend/I am something you can never comprehend” lyric at the start.
On “tears in the club,” I really enjoyed the cadence of “My hips/my thighs/my hair/my eyes/my late night cries.” It reminded me of a similar cadence in the bridge of “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” from Taylor Swift’s 2019 Lover, which goes “My heart, my hips, my body, my love/Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch.”
That song paired with “oh my love” which immediately follows shows this hot/cold, back and forth wrestling Twigs seems to be doing. A similar dizzying back and forth theme appeared on SZA’s SOS, which some may dislike the lack of cohesion for an album that’s supposed to have a through line it’s following, I think this yo-yoing is more realistic and representative of what it’s like to be in two minds about something — you feel one way one minute, and the next you feel totally different and you go back and forth like that for some time as you wrestle with the ideas or the feelings that are driving you mad. Both of these projects really feel like a glimpse into the process of working through something, rather than just presenting a neat and tidy conclusion after they’ve gone through.
An absolutely iconic moment comes on track 10 “which way,” where on the voice note outro, Twigs is commenting on a Twitter trend “I wanna be a rockstar girlfriend,” but as she quickly refutes “I’m the rockstar, not my boyfriend/I’m not the rockstar’s girlfriend, I am The Rockstar Girlfriend.”
In reading other reviews of this project, the verdict seemed to be split on the use of the voice notes across many of the tracks. In a review for Pitchfork, it was said that “the snippets feel gratuitous, like one of those year-end Instagram dumps, full of in-jokes and private realizations without enough context to be significant.” And I can understand on one hand why it appears the voice notes trick has run its course, but personally I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve heard on “Secrets from a Girl (Who’s Seen It All)” from Lorde’s Solar Power, Maggie Rogers’ “So Sick of Dreaming,” and the ones heard on this project. With this not being an album and not being married to the idea of having a linear narrative that it’s telling, I feel across all the tracks a vibe of figuring things out, being confused, and not being entirely sure how you feel. When we feel like that, or at least when I do, I want to talk to my friends about it and I want to know what they have to say. The inclusion of the voice notes, while yes, being full of inside jokes and private realizations, they allow us be a fly on the wall as Twigs is telling them about what’s going on in her life and asking their advice.
