British singer, songwriter, producer and more recently turned actor, FKA Twigs dropped her third record, Eusexua, in January of 2025. While she has undoubtably amassed a cult following for her niche, ethereal, techno-pop sound, Eusexua brought with it an immense spark of popularity and conversation surrounding the artist.
The release was certainly timely and meshed well with the recent rise of rave culture and club music in the general public sphere, however something felt unique about it. While artists like Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, and The Dare used their music to illuminate the masterpiece of grime and glitter that is club culture, FKA Twigs took a different route.
Combining themes of openness, sexual freedom, and vulnerability, Eusexua feels not only like a celebration of rave culture but also a celebration of self.
Twigs paints a unique picture of complete and total earnestness through the juxtaposition of nods to infamous clubs braided in with earnest confessions of the female experience. She builds a world one not only wants to explore, but can already relate to. Intrigue matched with true earnest.
“Eusexua” by artist-made-definition, is an ephemeral state of being. As stated in a teaser trailer for the album, Eusexua is “shimmering rose petals on [your] skin”, the sensation of “when everything feels perfect”. It’s “oxygen…the thing that makes [you] feel alive”, “like you’ve finally reached your destination”.
Eusexua is not only an album but a way of life, and and experience unlike any other.
The Woman Behind The Album
Before delving into the album itself one should first become acquainted with FKA Twigs as a person. In doing so, it becomes clear who exactly we’re dealing with: a creative powerhouse, and a musical visionary.
While she’s garnered most of her acclaim through music, she’s well versed in a multitude of creative avenues. In her youth she took part in both opera and ballet lessons and later went as far as to pursue a career in dancing singularly.
Before shifting her focus to music ventures, she appeared in a multitude artist’s music videos such as Kylie Minogue and Jessie J. Notably, after becoming a professional dancer at the shockingly young age of twelve, Twigs expresses she grew to despise the constriction and perfectionism of classical dance training. From this distaste, she began exploring alliterative forms of dance like voguing, crumping, and pole dancing which opened her up to an entirely new community.
She worked as a hostess in a popular strip club, and later performed at the notorious venue, The Box. She began hosting raves and parties, all of which certainly adds clarity to the personal nods she affords to club culture throughout her work.
A Focus Shift
She made a splash in the music industry with the release of LP1 which received very positive critical acclaim. And slowly but surely, it seemed as thought the more she released the more people wanted.
Her albums MAGDELENE featuring her previously most widely known song Celophane, and later CAPRISONGS garnered similar cultish support. Lastly, within the last year, Twigs made her acting debut in a remake of The Crow.
To state it plainly, Twigs is both a genre and career bender. And to know her creative range, is to love it.
Eusexua as a Concept
At times, using words within creative work that previously haven’t existed in general linguistics can be looked at as a weakness of one’s writing skill. However, in this case I feel that Twigs’ invention lends itself to the overall theme and message of the album. She’s promoting this idea that you can be exactly what you want to be, undefined by outside intervention. That every person is a self-contained masterpiece in their own right.
In interviews she’s described the sensation as, “creating purely and unabashedly” as well as the previously listed definitions. But more than anything else, Eusexua seems to refer to the existence of nowness and the feeling that the only moment that has existed or ever will, is the exact moment you’re in. Without worry, without care, without scrutiny.
The human experience in its purest and most concentrated form and the ability to simply be.
Inspiration
Twigs claims her original inspiration for the album came forth while she was living in Prague, a city known for many things but most notably their club scene. During this time, she expressed that she began exploring herself and her life in ways she hadn’t since childhood. She recollects being in these clubs and accepting and loving the strange movements of her body as she danced, the freedom of being a face in a crowd, and of being a collective mosaic of absurdity and self expression.
she created this album as a reminder to people that you can be outlandish, and that you can be a spectacle. And in fact, that’s what you truly are.
When reflecting on the album regarding it’s over arching themes, it feels three-pronged lyrically and thematically.
Sex and Sexuality
Songs such as Eusexua, Girl Feels Good, Perfect Stranger, and Strip Tease certainly fall under the theme of sensuality. Often these songs explore not only the experience of sexual fluidity and freedom, but also ownership of ones sexual experiences and body. Especially from the female perspective these songs have a clear feminist undertone, and are an open out cry for sexual liberation.
In an interview with Imogen Heap, Twigs explains how she feels that Eusexua is so powerful because if humans knew we were capable of experiencing it, the world would shift on its axis. And I think this idea can be tied to female sexuality as well, for so long sex was extremely male-centric. And even now, female sexual liberation is a controversial topic. In the same way if women knew we could take full ownership of our sexual experience, the world would be drastically different.
Freedom and Openness
Though one could argue the album in its entirety vouches for freedom in any and all forms, there’s one song in particular that sticks our in that regard: Room of Fools. The song is a specific and on the nose call out to the aforementioned club scenes, and the experience of being a face in the crowd.
The song opens simply with a clear image, “stranger in a dark room, dancing, almost lost you, we make something together, we’re open wounds, just bleeding out the pressure and it feels nice”.
Here, Twigs expresses a phenomenon she will later call “beautiful and untethered”. It’s a community without a name and with no obligation to one another. Simply a crowd who all happened to go to the same place at the same time, and are now all experiencing the same things. It exemplifies the miraculousness of the similarity between oneself and a complete stranger, and the freedom that comes with knowing that without having to speak.
She then goes on to express that she can be anyone she wants to be there. There’s no rules, and no judgement. Total and absolute euphoric freedom.
Emotional Depth and Earnest Confessionals
What underscores the album in a way that sets Eusexua apart from other recent club-techno releases is the moments of emotional depth she divulges.
I think often when artists and the world at large discuss some of the topics Twigs has on the album thus far, they fail to communicate the reality behind them. And how often ultimate freedom and self-security comes with the unpacking and forsaking of your own perception. And with that, how in order to let the world see who you are, you first have to see it for yourself. These things are often as rewarding as they are whole-bodily terrifying.
Sticky struck a chord with me, especially for its honestness. She was just speaking of sexual liberation and freedom, and now on this track Twigs expresses what it feels like to be vulnerable in that way. And the reality of letting another person see you and know you on such an intimate level.
One lyric in particular has stuck since my first listen. Twig says very plainly, “I’m tired of messing up my life with overcomplicated moments”, and it perfectly exemplifies the feeling of coming into yourself and realizing your faults and your flaws aren’t just cute personality quirks anymore. That there is work and healing to be done. And more than that, looking around and realizing you’re the reason why you’re suffering.
24hr Dog touches on something similar. The song discusses the twenty-four hour, unending performance that is allowing yourself to be defined by someone else’s perception, especially in romantic contexts. Again, she says “I bend more than what I thought was possible, me in shapes to make you pleased” it’s tragic and its real, and it’s an experience almost everyone will encounter.
Eusexua in Sound
The same three pronged structure cannot be applied regarding the sound.
In someway the album can be categorized under the loose umbrella of club-techno. But to leave it there simply would be ignorant, and a failure to the multifaceted sound that Twigs creates.
I think a perfect example of this is the juxtaposition of her light airy vocals that whisper these elfish, fairy-like, deliveries of her lyrics over hard hitting base isolations and techno-glitch ad-libs on songs like Drums of Death, or Room of Fools.
It’s the funky echoing baseline on Girl Feels Good. The trickling piano on Sticky, and the mellow guitar on Wanderlust. The new-wave house feeling on 24hr Dog. And how how miraculously, this all coexists with such ease. Perhaps to express the chemistry found in a room full of strangers partying, dancing, and finding community within one another.
This album cannot be defined by one sound in the same way that human beings cant be defined as one thing.
