Sex remains one of the nuclear themes of pop music, but it is rarely represented in such a complex way as in the second album of FKA Twigs, the alias used by the British singer, producer and dancer Tahliah Debrett. Without aspiring to be a bestseller, it is a work that aims to reach a wide audience: after all, their songs are about the sentimental breakup of a popular artist in the United Kingdom with an actor who has been a world youth icon for a decade, Robert Pattinson But what we find inside is an intricate balance of whispered emotions in which desire, domination, surrender, anger, vulnerability, loss and bitterness occur and that contains numerous messages of reconstruction and personal reaffirmation. And sexuality is always the space in which all that emotional swarm occurs.

To begin with is the identification with María Magdalena that underlines the title and the central song of the ensemble . After years of getting used to the porn of adolescent pop, in Magdalene we find a young woman who rejects stereotypes and shows sex in another way. Identifying with the sinner, the sufferer, she sings about a loving and carnal devotion that in my delivery reaches mysticism, about being a fabulous woman who is always in the shadow of a man and about being judged publicly. And, for not avoiding the question anymore, about being a woman and being called a whore.

Religious references emerge here and there as a subplot of these songs , with arrangements that seem intended to sound in a Gothic cathedral and the collaboration of the female choir The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices. But the sound of the disc, in the background, is another. Very varied style within a modern electronic aesthetic, it approaches the avant-garde sounds using and combining post dubstep , trap , glitches , vaporwave and gothic music.

This post-industrial electronics, halfway between the digital design created in computer and the pianos and classical instruments, accompanies the voice, does not work as in Portishead, a reference not so far from its music, where the sharp sound represents the constant threat of world about the protagonist, which always sounds on the edge of a cliff. Here the voice blends with that sound, it hardly survives him.

And when music and voice melt that way, she acquires a humanoid look. It is as if FKA Twigs, with his repertoire of gorgorites and hot breaths and murmurs, was actually a fictional cyber character, or a synthetic creature capable of loving and giving love like the Adam of Machines like me, Ian McEwan's novel. In this way, their bionic ballads recreate an exotic sound, but not as an exotic music inspired by clichés from Asia, Africa or Latin America, which is a long tradition of Western art, but an exotic alien, or video game. An exotic fetishist for times of liquid sexuality.

And at what speed does all this happen? Leeeeento Perhaps because, as Erling Kagge states in his book Walking, "life is longer when you walk." Sometimes many more things happen through the listener's head when everything goes slower, and that is what happens in this Magdalene of digital ballads.

FKA Twigs, remember, she is not only a singer, but also a composer, synthesizer performer, drum machines and producer: she is the author of everything that is heard , from the general concept to the last sword effect that is drawn by cutting the air.

Next to it, a group of highly regarded collaborators participates: Arca, Nicolas Jaar, Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never), Skrillex, Future, Hudson Mohawke, Benny Blanco, Koreless, Jack Antonoff, Noah Goldstein and Cashmere Cat, among others. Although they are linked to electronic music, they cannot form a more diverse team. They only have one thing in common: they are all men. It seems like a deliberate decision, of course, and that has to do incidentally with another issue that has happened with this record of endless listening: often FKA Twigs is compared to other female artists like Kate Bush, Björk or Fever Ray , even with an Enya that was sensual. His voice record and his attitude are certainly similar to them, but in reality the unique artist has the same thing to do with men like Arca, James Blake, Lotic, Xiu Xiu, Sampha or Perfume Genius.

With its electronic ballads about desire and longing, about being depressed and masturbating, this second album by FKA Twigs is an island in today's music. But today's music is like an archipelago of islands without connection. For years, there is no better virtue in the pop industry than the difference , and that causes us to constantly face discs and artists who seek individuality, in addition to transversality within several styles. The American singer Billie Eilish is another example of this. And rapper Tyler, The Creator. Or Lizzo, of course. Weyes Blood, Solange, Jamila Woods ...

It is also a world apart from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' latest album, Ghosteen , a long play created from an emotional failure, the death in an accident of one of the Australian musician's children. The music that has sprouted from that pain is one of the musical summits of the year, almost impossible to compare with anything we have heard in his career or that has been recorded this year.

The vote of the experts

TOMÁS FERNANDO FLORES

1. Magdalene (Young Turks), by FKA Twigs.

2. Ghosteen (Ghosteen), by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

3. Anima (XL), by Thonm Yorke.

4. Forever (Caroline), from Metronomy.

5. When I get home (RCA / Sony), by Solange.

WHITE LETICIA

1. The Age of Immunology (Carfo Fire), by Vanishing Twin.

2. This Is How You Smile (Rvng Intl), by Ice Cream Black.

3. Raw Honey (Mexican Summer), from Drugdealer.

4. Norman Fuckin Rockwell (Polydor / Universal), from Lana del Rey.

5. Reward (Mexican Summer), by Cate Le Bon.

SANTI CARRILLO

1. Magdalene (Young Turks), by FKA Twigs.

2. Ghosteen (Ghosteen), by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

3. Igor (Columbia / Sony), from Tyler the Creator.

4. When I get home (RCA / Sony), by Solange.

5. When we all fall asleep, where do we go? (Intescope / Universal), by Billie Eilish.

DARÍO PRIETO

1. Legacy! Legacy! (Jagjaguwar), by Jamila Woods.

2. Igor (Columbia / Sony), from Tyler the Creator.

3. Norman Fuckin Rockwell (Polydor / Universal), from Lana del Rey.

4. When we all fall asleep, where do we go? (Intescope / Universal), by Billie Eilish.

5. House of sugar (Domino), Sandy (Alex G).

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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