Seven years since she first emerged as the fully formed, avant-pop genius FKA Twigs, you may think that Tahliah Barnett would have lost some of her power to amaze.
Last night only served to reinforce that the singer/dancer, 31, is as bewitching and bewildering a talent as ever, worthy of mentioning in the same breath as Kate Bush or Björk. Currently riding high on the critical success of her staggering second album Magdalene, Barnett has developed a live show to match while making precisely zero concessions to her radically experimental, creative vision.
It was a seamless 90-minute set, characterised by imaginative costume and set design, pitch-perfect vocals and fluid choreography incorporating tap, jian swordplay, masks and the balletic pole-dancing showcased in the astonishing video for comeback single Cellophane.
A performance this technically perfect could easily have seemed sterile, were Barnett not capable of imbuing meaning several fathoms deep with the very subtlest of vocal adjustments. On Home With You her singing ranged from a contemptuous growl to the most angelic of falsettos. Mirrored Heart was introduced with the admission, “I’ve had my heart broken,” and found Barnett briefly overcome with emotion, her soprano vocal wobbling perilously as the torch song reached its emotional climax.
Among the more amorphous early productions, Pendulum and Papi Pacify stood out, the former a masterclass in sinuous, alternative R&B, the latter a fever dream hewn from complex percussion and sensual sighs.
But set-closer Cellophane stole the show. Emoting over sparse piano chords and sporadic swoop of cello, Barnett brought a bustling audience to a standstill with the stripped-back arrangement, before bowing hand-in-hand with her backing dancers and musicians, and simply disappearing.
