According to FKA twigs, “Eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience.”
A deeply personal and authentic record, Eusexua — released on Jan. 24, 2025 — feels like an unveiling of FKA twigs’s mysterious persona. Dramatic yet vulnerable, the record is club music for when you are dancing alone, performing for for an empty audience. And, like most excellent artists, FKA twigs manages to carefully teeter along the fine line of artful originality and iconic influences.
Most of the tracklist is characterized by harsh beats and heavily autotuned backing vocals that sound eerily similar to electronic instruments. For a record in the post-Brat-era, this seems on-brand. However, Eusexua isn’t traditional club music in the sense that behind the bass and electric sounds are lyrics so personal they feel uncomfortable.
In my opinion, this uneasiness stems from the Eusexua using the the body and sexuality as vessels for FKA twigs’s vulnerability. For instance, in “Sticky,” when she admits “I tried to fuck you with the lights on / In the hope that you’d think I’m open / And have a conversation” or on “24hr Dog,” when she sings, “I bend more than what I thought was possible / Me, in shapes to make you pleased.”
The central theme of the body becomes even more poignant when you consider that, as an ex-professional dancer and someone living with chronic pain, FKA Twigs’s relationship with her body has always been (and continues to be) at the center of her experiences. This raw honesty transforms the album into something more than just electric, pounding beats; it becomes an intimate confession to listeners, blurring the line between desire and emotional exposure.
I think another reason this album has made its way into my good books is the artful influences it has been derived from. Listening to it for the first time, I genuinely had to pause and check that Spotify hadn’t autoshuffled to add other songs to the mix.
"Room of Fools" is a personal favorite of mine; sung primarily in her lower register with yodel-like sections, it feels like an unreleased track from Debut-era Björk. Beyond displaying a rare glimpse of an unexplored side of FKA twigs’s vocals, this track also highlights her experimentation with instrumentals — something she hasn’t dived into before. In my opinion, this truly adds new depth to her sonic world. The combination of bells and ethereal, almost otherworldly vocals — sung in what sounds like an unknown language — feels as though it were ripped straight from an unreleased draft of Björk’s “Human Behavior.”
Similarly, I see heavy influences from early-1980 Kate Bush in “Keep it, Hold it,” with FKA twigs’s inclusion of vocal chants and heavy, almost cinematic, thumping beats. Furthermore, the influences on her album transcend geographical boundaries. FKA twigs has skillfully combined electronic hammering beats from European club culture, vocals from Japan, and “exotic” instrumentals featuring bells and woodwinds. Yet somehow, despite these broad, timeless influences, Eusexua is fresh, modern and distinctly FKA twigs.
Every album has a song that serves as a litmus test for listeners of the artist, one so unconventional that it either turns them away or draws them deeper into the artist’s discography. On this record, it’s “Childlike Things,” which features North West (yes, the 11-year-old) scream-singing in Japanese. Meant to be light, nonsensical, and fun, it feels out of place on the tracklist — especially because one of the most emotional songs, “Sticky” is right after it. Personally, I fear I may have failed this particular litmus test. “Childlike Things” was just too... childlike. But maybe that’s the point. Eusexua thrives on contrasts, weaving together raw emotionality and playfulness, the haunting and the absurd.
Grand, cinematic and freshly futuristic, Eusexua is FKA twigs at her most experimental and intimate. It’s an album that refuses to be boxed in, challenging listeners to embrace both its intimacy and its unpredictability. And whether every experiment lands or not, FKA twigs’s ability to push boundaries remains undeniable. She manages to strike a fine balance between paying homage to icons that came before her and carving out an original brand for herself.
The bottom line? If you’re seeking a soundtrack for a night of sweat-soaked dancing in a European club or a deep, introspective moment alone, Eusexua should be your next listen.
