FKA Twigs has revealed a new 5-track EP and 16 minute-long film project titled M3LL155X, featuring four tracks from the EP with four surreal and spectacular films that follow on from each other in one coherent Twigs-directed video artwork. Twigs revealed the title of the project in June, describing M3LL155X (or “Mellissa”) as her “personal female energy,” adding that it’s “not a weird alter ego,” but a “way of separating it from myself.”
The film project opens with Figure 8, a track inspired by New York vogue legend Derek Prodigy that premiered on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 radio show last week. The film stars Michèle Lamy (the partner of Rick Owens), who wears her trademark stacks of jewellery with body markings and gold grills. Like a dark jester, dimly illuminated by her own fire fly-like light, Lamy winds her hands around her face and mouths along to the lyrics. Figure 8 is followed by two brand new tracks: I’m Your Doll and In Time.
is a reworking of Twigs’ misguided teenage writing, recontextualised by her as a woman. Twigs appears as a blow-up sex doll in the disturbing video that sees a gross man leer at and sweat all over her. Leading on to , Twigs wakes up on a mattress on a surreal geometric platform, hugely pregnant and eventually giving birth to colorful streams of paint — a metaphor for the creative process. Twigs raps on the track and dances buffalo girl-style, wearing Craig Green trousers and double denim by Faustine Steinmetz.
The film closes with Glass & Patron, a track and Youtube award-winning video that Twigs first revealed in March, that plays out like a vogue ball in a dark forest, with dancers including Krunk troupe leader Dominant wearing a variety of full fashion looks, including a tracksuit by Liam Hodges. The EP features a fifth track not included in the video project, titled Mothercreep.
The full M3LL155X project cements FKA Twigs as one of the most exciting artists in the world right now, and it was recorded in just a few days with producer Boots, mere months after the release of Twigs debut album, LP1. The surreal, hand-through-face album art was created by artist and shaman Matthew Stone, and a 12″ vinyl pressing of the EP is available to pre-order now.