“Water Me” begins with a haunting and hollowed out vocal effect that’s most synonymous these days with Crystal Castles’ Alice Glass or The Knife/Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer Andersson. An artificial murmur that loops hypnotically for about 24 seconds before it’s joined by the sort of low-pitched hum you hear when blowing across the top of a glass beer bottle.
In the same way that Burial, The xx or Massive Attack can sometimes conjure up images of hazy slow-motion city streets and 4am journeys home out of just a few sparse and eerie noises, ‘Water Me’ quickly begins sprouting a sonic urban landscape within our heads. Even the subtle beat (which eventually creeps in) sounds like rickety train carriages echoing in the lonely hours of the morning. The fact is, everything about this song’s curiously mellow intro is instantly and deeply evocative…
“He wont make love to me now…” is the first lyric we hear drop from FKA Twigs’ (formerly just “Twigs“) mouth, with a delivery so deadpan, it only seems to make the words and their emotions seem more worn down and vulnerable. It’s almost as if she’s cried herself into a catatonic state over this ex, no one can really say, but what is evident is how beautiful and sincere her story comes across in the space of a mere few minutes.
While the downbeat electronic backdrop barely changes tone or pace throughout the rest of the track, FKA Twigs’ voice and repeated lyrics pierce through the minimalistic melancholy like a floating arrow. And it makes for one of the most arresting and intriguing breakup songs of 2013 so far.
‘Water Me’ is the first song lifted from her second EP released on September 9th and is co-produced by Arca (who also recently worked on the Kanye West album ‘Yeezus’.)
You can check out her beautiful bug-eyed video below: