Closer

Closer

FKA twigs

“Closer” has an undeniably choral sound, and sounds very hymnal. The slow, mellifluous beat and the soaring vocals are not far-removed from the ethereal voices in the compositions of Thomas Tallis, the famed composer of sacred music in Gregorian England. This song is a superb example of FKA’s extreme versatility, and pushback against being pigeonholed as an RnB artist (a categorization she herself has observed that is largely to do with naïve and ignorant correlations between her color and her musical project). Sacred music of this sort is about the most ‘English’ music there is, and along with the Beatles and the Stones, Tallis' and his contemporaries' sound is one of the most significant contributions England has made to musical history. The fact that FKA Twigs echoes this tradition shows her awareness of her own culture, her awareness music as procession, and, like the best in the game (read: Kanye) her ability to make new and beautiful the old and obscure.

The language of this song (‘Now I yearn to follow you’; ‘Eternal darkness’; ‘savior’) is quintessentially hymnal. An obvious comparison is the language of ‘Amazing Grace’: ‘I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.’
This track, along with ‘Pendulum,’ is perhaps album’s best example of what FKA can do with her transcendent voice.