If heartbreak were a sport, FKA Twigs would be its Olympic-level sword dancer—quite literally. On her album, Magdalene, Twigs slashes through the clichés of modern pop with the precision of an artist who’s spent a decade crafting her own rules. And yes, she does it while wielding a sword in live performances because why not?
“It’s not really up to me to say what the album’s about now,” Twigs says, dodging the heartbreak-album label like it’s an overused trope. “If people want to call it that, fine. If they say it’s about unicorns, then great—it’s about unicorns.” For the record, she doesn’t sound heartbroken anymore. But, as she slyly points out, Magdalene isn’t hers to define anymore. “I wrote it, I lived it, but now it belongs to everyone else.”
The album is named after Mary Magdalene, the oft-misunderstood biblical figure. Much like its namesake, Magdalene is a paradox—hauntingly delicate yet defiantly strong, with Twigs’ ethereal soprano drifting over experimental production that feels equal parts Kate Bush and Björk, with a sprinkle of David Bowie’s alien elegance. Twigs name-drops Bowie as an “artistic North Star” and casually tosses out Nina Simone’s cover of “Just Like a Woman” as an inspiration, like she’s curating an avant-garde Spotify playlist in real time.
Her process? A slow, meticulous unraveling. “I’m not in a rush to churn out singles,” she says, distancing herself from today’s “algorithm-driven” music industry. “If I rushed something, and it accidentally turned into a huge hit, I’d have to sing that song for the rest of my life. Imagine that—stuck at a holiday camp at 60, wearing some sequined dress, singing the same song I hated. No thanks.”
And yet, Magdalene is filled with tracks that feel destined to stick, not because they pander to trends but because they carve their own niche. “Fallen Alien” bristles with dark energy, while “Cellophane” centers on whispered percussion that feels like a heartbeat slowed to the edge of oblivion. Both tracks embody Twigs’ knack for blending vulnerability with razor-sharp precision.
When asked about injecting humor into her music—yes, it’s there, hidden under layers of haunting strings and synths—Twigs is refreshingly self-aware. “I’m not that serious of a person,” she admits. “Even in the worst situations, I’ll make a joke. It’s just who I am.” She compares her work to an “inside joke” that only she fully gets—a reminder that not everything needs to be so relentlessly earnest.
But her artistry doesn’t stop with the music. For her live performances, Twigs learned swordplay, an art form that’s as beautiful as it is dangerous. “It’s just practice,” she says, downplaying the fact that one wrong move could probably slice a vein. “You put in the hours, and you get better. It’s almost scientific.”
Twigs might downplay her own brilliance, but make no mistake: Magdalene is a masterclass in world-building, an album that demands your attention and rewards your patience. “I’m just a cat,” she says with a laugh. “I get on with it.” And get on with it, she does—on her own terms, one hauntingly beautiful melody at a time.
Listen to the interview above and check out the video below.
