On 'Cellophane,' FKA Twigs Rebuilds Her Signature Sound

FKA Twigs didn't just launch a sound, but a way of moving through it. The British singer, dancer and producer charges industrial noise with a titillating current, slinks around the dirty edges of pop, and contorts hymns to a slow-burning ecstasy. Her output has been sporadic, but nevertheless rich since LP1, released five years ago — there was the marvelous M3LL155X EP in 2015, the one-off single "Good to Love" in 2016 and a guest spot on last year's "Fukk Sleep" by A$AP Rocky. (She's also starred in ads for Nike and Apple, the first directed by her and the latter helmed by Spike Jonze.)

From an as-yet-untitled or scheduled sophomore album, the broken ballad "Cellophane" marks her musical return and, from her perspective, a new beginning. The track was written and produced by FKA Twigs with Jeff Kleinman and Michael Uzowuru.

"Throughout my life I've practiced my way to being the best I could be," she writes in a statement. "It didn't work this time. I had to tear down every process I'd ever relied on. Go deeper. Rebuild. Start again."

For the video, directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, FKA Twigs chronicles a defiant fall from grace, complete with mechanical angel, through a new skill: pole dancing. She trained for months and the result is spellbinding in its choreography, exposed in its soul.

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