FKA twigs has always dabbled in the obscure, tending toward the odd and avant-garde, her third studio album has been looming as one of her biggest swings for some time. Teased during fashion shows and late-night appearances amid her acting pivot, FKA twigs derived EUSEXUA from her move to Prague and subsequent love for its rave scene—here’s everything you need to know about the project.
The origin story behind the creation of this album is integral to fully getting your arms around it. Though Apple Music users will see this tidbit front and center when queueing up the record, here are the artist’s words again:
During a break from shooting The Crow reboot in Prague, FKA twigs found her way outside the city to a warehouse rave, [snapping the singer] out of the intense brain fog she’d been stuck inside for years – so much so that she was moved to invent a word to describe [that] transcendent clarity.
Though it’s not a concept album, the origin story for EUSEXUA feels crucial for FKA twigs because you easily can imagine each of its narratives playing out on nights like divulges. It’s not that much of this material is made for the club, but rather that it feels ripped directly from it, like a bootleg from a venue you’d only hear about in hushed tones.
Emotional And Instrumental Contrast Shines
Given the portmanteau namesake, perhaps it’s no surprise: the singer handles sexuality in almost spiritual terms throughout the record, recontextualizing many profane or otherwise vulgar situations in more vaunted terms. Take “Perfect Stranger,” an unabashed ode to the one-night stand. Animated by the sentiment on the hook, “‘Cause you’re a stranger, so you’re perfect / You’re a stranger, so you’re perfect,” twigs distances from a need for emotional intimacy, purposefully rejecting the finer details of her spurious partner’s life. Cut later in the tracklist for “Striptease,” juxtaposing its title with choir vocals and otherwise religious instrumentation underneath, descending into reverb-soaked harmonies with a genuinely exalted quality.
The other main driving force behind EUSEXUA is its complete embrace of electronic music. To be sure, FKA twigs was never a total stranger to the genre, with previous work hinting towards digital inspirations, but before this record, she was a pop star through and through. Even if her vocal contributions remain the main draw, club beats, driving drumlines, and progressive house synthesizers combine to become earnest co-stars. “Girl Feels Good” is indebted to Massive Attack, with plunging electric guitars and methodic percussion. The title song, “Eusexua,” dips into progressive house music and techno, yet twigs’ performance is nothing short of cinematic with her emotive melodies, utilizing autotune and discordant industrial effects towards its end that tap into that grimy warehouse atmosphere.
The Quiet Moments On EUSEXUA Allow FKA twigs’ Artistry To Shine
All of this makes for a palpable sense of momentum and propulsion coursing through what FKA twigs includes on EUSEXUA, maybe best elucidated by “Keep It, Hold It.” Though opening with quieted melodies and instrumentation, around the midpoint, the song explodes into a progressive electronic anthem, with unrelenting grooves and synth lines turning it from a ballad into a dancefloor weapon. Contrast that with the singer’s disquieted lyrics and delivery atop it, beginning her second verse section, “They speak of me like I’m not in the room / They say I mess up way more than I do / I often look at windows for escape / To be safe.”
The narrow focus that EUSEXUA has, revolving around just twigs and potential partners, resultantly makes the one moment where it widens its scope all the more notable. Those who come into the record from a hip-hop background will immediately be drawn to “Childlike Things,” fittingly where North West, daughter of Kanye and newly minted solo artist, appears. We’ll leave her on-mic debut where it is (see our original coverage of Ye’s Vultures for that), but this cut does a much better job of formatting the record around her talents as they are.
Instrumentally, it places her high-pitched Japanese language verse with further playful harmonies, rounded out with FKA twigs copping her jaunty cadence that brackets North’s sections. It’s chaotic in the best possible way, also an instance of excellent sequencing in that it follows the tender resolution at the tail end of “Keep It, Hold It.”
The Last Word On A Surefire AOTY Candidate
All of this is to say, even if crossover into electronic music is increasingly becoming in vogue (see one BRAT), few accomplish the pivot as well as FKA twigs does with EUSEXUA. This album is meticulously studied, then executed with serious reverence for its inspirations. Though it’s early, it certainly feels like the English multi-hyphenate has crafted the first truly great album of 2025.
Catch EUSEXUA and all of the FKA twigs backlog now wherever you stream your music.
