A highly publicised break-up with a highly public figure sets the scene for FKA twigs’ LP1 follow-up. And the album does feel like heartbreak. It arrives scattered, broken. It reaches in through your ribcage, grabbing your heart with both hands.
It sees her channeling Enya, Björk, Kate Bush - Mary Magdalene even opens with the line “A woman’s work.” But twigs has created something singular. Something that brings hope when the world fails you. An album more than worthy of our Album Of The Week title.
What they're saying...
"I never thought heartbreak could be so all-encompassing," said FKA twigs of the album back in September.
"I never thought that my body could stop working to the point that I couldn’t express myself physically in the ways that I have always loved and found so much solace.
"I have always practiced my way into being the best I could be, but I couldn’t do that this time, I was left with no option but to tear every process down.
"But the process of making this album has allowed me for the first time, and in the most real way, to find compassion when I have been at my most ungraceful, confused and fractured.
"I stopped judging myself and at that moment found hope in Magdalene. To her I am forever grateful."
What we're saying...
★★★★
Review by Christopher H James. Read the full review here...
"Five years after her breakthrough LP1, FKA twigs takes us on an entirely new adventure. It’s one set against the backdrop of a public separation and the surgical removal of fibroid tumours from her uterus, an experience she describes as “living with a fruit bowl of pain every day". But despite hardship, Magdalene is full of surprises...
"Although there’s a small army of collaborators, including Skrillex and Oneohtrix Point Never, FKA twigs was involved in every stage of the record, and it's a cohesive, carefully crafted whole...
"It’s the sound of someone crawling through the wreckage to good health and a new perspective. Magdalene is a personal triumph over adversity."
Looking for more new music? Then stepped right this way and check out the list of this week's releases.
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