A new FKA twigs release is like Halley’s Comet: every once in a long while, the planet witnesses a phenomenon.
Her newest work, EUSEXUA, is her first full-length release since her mixtape Caprisongs (2022) and her first album since her debut MAGDALENE, which came out in 2019.
When listening to her songs, it becomes clear that the British singer and dancer doesn’t bother with trying to fit in; from her earliest tracks in 2012 to today, she’s tried to push the boundaries of music as an art form.
Genre labels, whether pop, funk, trip-hop, or R&B, fall short of describing what her music is actually like. One could call it a mix of all four or none of them. Owen Myers, a writer for Pitchfork, described her stylistic versatility as experiencing “a constant sense that [she] is shape-shifting before our eyes.”
So, of course, she would name her latest work something like EUSEXUA, a word she made up to describe “a feeling of euphoria so intense that it transcends human form.”
Did she make a conscious decision to insert the word “sex” into “euphoria”? It’s possible; sex and pleasure play a major role in most of the songs on the album. She definitely leans into it as a theme on tracks like “24hr Dog” and “Striptease.”
EUSEXUA continues her fondness for eschewing genre tropes; it flirts with techno and plays with pop while simultaneously not really being either. The album tinkers with a repetitive sound and strange bursts of musical energy that can be difficult to get used to.
Sometimes it feels like she threw a dart at a board to decide what to put in a song — how much more random can it get than a feature spot for Kanye West’s daughter to sing a verse in Japanese? (That being said, that song is surprisingly catchy.)
In terms of standouts, the eponymous opener is a solid thesis of what she wants the album to be: an experiment at heart but also something attempting to burrow to the core of a feeling. The earlier tracks, namely “Girl Feels Good” and “Perfect Stranger,” also hold a tinge of strangeness, but they’re certainly more accessible compared to the later tracks on the record.
All of this comes together to make FKA twigs a little daunting to the uninitiated. The fast synths and odd musical choices can be off-putting at first, but with repeat listens, the charms of her music grow surprisingly over time.
The sound of EUSEXUA may not align with everyone’s personal tastes, but it’s an emotionally vulnerable work worth listening to if you’re willing to put your ears to the test.
Trial Track: “Eusexua”
Score: 6/10