FKA twigs: "Good to Love"
Tahliah Barnett understands full well the power of deceptive simplicity. On her soon-to-be-reissued debut EP from 2012, when she was known as just Twigs, her standout track “Breathe” addressed one of the most basic human processes of all, but did so through deeply nuanced electronic fragments. Across 2014′s LP1 and last year’s M3LL155X (pronounced “Melissa”), FKA twigs has further refined this approach, exploring the complexities of fundamental interpersonal intimacy within a spellbinding electronic pop aesthetic.
On “Good to Love,” the British pop multi-hyphenate adapts that sensibility to perhaps her most representatively simple-yet-multitudes-containing sound yet. Rather than a twitchier, more aggressive song like LP1‘s “Two Weeks” or M3LL155X‘s “In Time,” this one’s a supine ballad, co-produced with Lana Del Rey collaborator Rick Nowels. And the title notion that “it’s good to love,” well, not even the Super Bowl 50 halftime show organizers would disagree.
Yet this is a love tainted by past pain, mixed with appeals to the sacred in Barnett’s invocations of prayer. And while the chorus might be direct enough to play in ’90s office buildings, the weightless production, rippling with additional Barnett vocals, retains Twigs’ welcome adventurousness, nodding to a 2016-model Sade. All of this, as usual for Twigs, arrives paired with a striking video, underscoring her deftness as a multimedia pop star. Put simply, no deception: “Good to Love” is very, very good.
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