When considering London singer-songwriter FKA Twigs (real name: Tahlia Barnett), one word immediately comes to mind: spellbinding. Whether it’s her creeping, sensual songs; the subtly discomfiting visuals accompanying them; or the languid, undulating onstage motion of the doe-eyed artist,
a trained dancer, one thing is certain: It’s very difficult to break the trance.
Her first EP surfaced in 2012, self-released and with each of its four tracks boasting a simple but compelling video. By the following year, FKA Twigs had signed to esteemed British imprint Young Turks, home to the xx and fast-rising Drake collaborator Sampha, and had released her second EP, again with matching visuals. EP2 explored a newfound musical kinship with Brooklyn producer Arca, whose cavernous, glitched-out soundscapes were a natural fit for FKA Twigs’s airy, minimalist songwriting.
With her debut album expected to materialize this year, FKA Twigs makes her inaugural New York appearances at this pair of shows. If she can bring to the stage even a fraction of the transporting effect of her records, the audience will be in for quite a trip.—Kristen Zwicker