Four months after releasing the first single under the same name, Eusexua, FKA Twigs serves us the full offering. An album that is equally euphoric, retrospective, and visceral, featuring an exploration and experimentation of inimitable sounds unique to Twigs and her world. Pounding beats, sultry synths, and hundreds of minuscule details transcend in a way that even Twigs herself couldn’t put into words, as there are no words in the English language that describe the feeling conveyed — it’s simply Eusexua. Hard metal silver stilettos, Björk, Kate Bush, Aphex Twin, and Madonna influences, as well as unlikely collaborations with North West and Koreless, populate the stellar exploration of sounds that is Eusexua.
Eusexua is a practice. Eusexua is a state of being. Eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience. This is how FKA Twigs has been describing her latest project — as a cultural movement that goes beyond the music and searches for transcendence, putting the human experience at the core of her work. Eusexua is a made-up word by the multidisciplinary artist herself, used to define the feeling of clarity, the feeling before an amazing idea and even before an orgasm. Otherworldly sex? Eusexua. Attraction and pull to a stranger on the dance floor that leads to hours of making out? Eusexua. “If they ask you, feel it, but don’t call it love, Eusexua,” she sings on the title track. “For the girls who comb their hair at their vanity at night, for the girls who find their true selves under a hard metal silver stiletto on the damp rave floor. Kissing without love and loving without fear,” reads a TikTok posted by Twigs.
After living in Prague for three months and exploring the underground techno scene, where a raw community of heterogeneous ravers rid themselves of their demons and negativity on the dance floor, FKA Twigs’ new chapter came together. Eusexua as an album is what a child between Björk’s Post and Madonna’s Ray of Light, conceived in a gritty industrial underground rave by Twigs, would sound like. While the singles might have been slightly misleading in terms of what to expect from the project sonically, it is destined to become a fan-favourite record that will seemingly transcend time and exceed euphoria. The title track’s pounding techno beats and sultry synths open the album, enveloping listeners in a cerebral and ephemeral feeling. With Eartheater’s background vocals and musical touch, the LP’s first offering sets the tone, transporting us to the euphoric feeling of Eusexua.
The layered electronic sounds continue on Girl Feels Good, an ode to female pleasure over trip-hop drums, electric guitars, reverberating synths, and psychedelic qualities that are heavily reminiscent of Madonna’s 1998 album Ray of Light. “When a girl feels good / It makes the world go round.” Twigs’ exploration of eroticism and submission reaches new depths in 24hr Dog, a mesmerising slow jam about completely submitting yourself to a lover. Its ambient qualities and vocal effects bring about a hypnotic feeling which sonically reflects letting oneself go when in a state of obedience and control. “Please don’t call my name when I submit to you this way, I’m a dog for you,” she sings with the signature light and airy sultry vocals also present throughout most tracks.
What truly stands out consistently throughout the album is the compelling ethereal vibe kept throughout Twigs’ exploration of sounds. Drums of Death is a very hard, tough, and visceral track driven by percussion and techno-like qualities, resulting in a constant feeling of push and pull, as if you were breaking out of the Matrix, with her glitchy vocals as she commands collective chaos at the end, robotically ordering, “Crash the system, diva doll. Serve cunt, serve violence.” On the other hand, Perfect Stranger is much more on the pop side for Twigs, fetishising anonymity and spontaneous clandestine encounters where there are no expectations from the other person. Twigs also showcases more vocal versatility than ever, from celestial sounds to growls to robotic soundscapes — everything is refreshing to hear.
The spotless track run is slightly muddled in Childlike Things, a bizarre misstep in the form of a J-pop song with Japanese lyrics and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s daughter as a feature. While her 2022 mixtape Caprisongs featured the likes of Jorja Smith, Shygirl, The Weeknd, and Rema, among others, the single credited guest vocal in Eusexua is North West, while the likes of Moran, Eartheater, and Stargate are behind the scenes, which was disappointing. While it shifts the energy back into a more fun and upbeat energy following the more introspective tracks, the song and Twigs’ favouring of nepotism stick out like a sore thumb.
Eusexua inarguably reaches its peak with Striptease. The new textures and tones her vocals take on in the slippery electronic R&B number, coupled with the immersive soundscaping and ambient pads, are reminiscent of a leveled-up version of Twigs’ older works from 2014’s LP1 and 2019’s critically acclaimed Magdalene. Stripping beyond the clothes, she highlights duality between sensuality and vulnerability, playing on the idea of finding relief through baring all and succumbing to closeness. “I’m stripping my heart till my pain disappears, opening me feels like a striptease,” she harmonises with nuanced layers of her own vocals as the song turns into drum and bass. Another stellar highlight is the weary Sticky, which interpolates Aphex Twin’s Avril 14th. The way Twigs plays with tempos in this track feels as if she were slowing down time until the withheld kick drums come in, transforming the track from a sexy electronic ballad into an explosive industrial percussion masterpiece in its outro.
Twigs has always dabbled in dance music, going from her electronic ballads decorated with skittering beats on Magdalene (2019) to the intricate and experimental dancehall in Caprisongs (2022). Yet Eusexua feels like the first time she truly immerses herself into dance music, mirroring her discography’s never-ending versatility and intricately straddling the lines between pop music, 90s influences, and postmodern creative grandeur. Her imagination shows no limits in the era’s music videos so far, featuring corporate diva doll aliens, mermaid-like creatures, high fashion, and her signature ‘skullet’, painting the picture of a judgement-free world where septum piercings, post-tribal tattoos, prosthetics, and an off-world aesthetic that is both sensual and extraterrestrial reign supreme. Paired with intricate choreography, a cameo from Yves Tumor, and high fashion, she’s one of the few artists whose music videos are worth watching and pulling apart.
While sometimes being too on the nose with its references and inspirations and not outdoing Caprisongs (2022), there is no need for competition as Eusexua, with a deluxe already on the way, makes a stellar addition to her discography and will round the year off being one of the best projects to have been put out, no doubt. Have you experienced Eusexua yet?