Have You Ever Experienced EUSEXUA?

EUSEXUA is a word made up by Twigs which was vaguely defined as a somewhat sexual but mostly hedonistic lifestyle of partying and pleasure in a video (pictured below) with quite possibly the most mid-2020s aesthetic I have ever seen: non-gendered models in layered outfits mixing high fashion with lingerie, extensive makeup and piercings vaguely define EUSEXUA as a state of mind over garage and experimental beats, inside brutalist grey rooms. This poses the aesthetic of the album as an ultra-alternative, post-everything society filled with raves, promiscuity and a higher, euphoric sense of being. Twigs herself is shown on photoshoots as this surreal being with her half-bald, half-dreaded hair and her body is deconstructed through confusing ai-generated videos that show her as some intersex creature contorting in front of a white background.

Further, the music video for "Drums of Death"/"Eusexua" which started the rollout, shows her group of dancers transforming from office workers to half-naked, nondescript bald bags of skin contorting in dirt around her (I am not making this up, if anything, I’m underselling it). The concept of EUSEXUA is to reject intellectualization, humanity and gender to transform into pure feeling, or in other words, get drugged out of your mind in underground raves for your EUSEXUA winter.

EUSEUXA puts a very strong emphasis on vibes and aesthetics, to a point where it is just as, if not more, important than the music itself. This really pushes the album’s concept very well, and works greatly with the music. The more experimental cuts feel perfectly in place in this alternative world, and the more straightforward pop songs feel straight out of some other dimension music television channel, where everything is quite similar but just foreign enough to be unnerving.

This album comes at a tumultuous time in FKA Twigs’ career and personal life, coming off a trial against her abusive ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf. The lyrical references to partying and promiscuity reflect on her inability to truly connect romantically with anyone again after the trauma and pain she’s endured, and comment on the dark side of the aesthetic she’s parading and reclaiming throughout the album. Namely in “Perfect Stranger”, in which through a message about self-acceptance, she shares her inability to get vulnerable and truly share who she is: she “doesn’t know and doesn’t care” about her partner’s life (“You’re a stranger, so you’re perfect” / “I’d rather know nothing than all the lies”). It’s also present in “Striptease” (“I’m stripping apart ‘till my pain disappears / Opening me feels like a striptease”), this duality between sexuality and sadness is heard in the performance itself as her sensual singing/rapping transforms into emotional howling in the latter half.

The project also saw a complete restart from scratch after the leak of 85 demos, as Twigs explained on an Instagram story in late 2023. This helps explain the strong stance the album takes as a concept album, as it is easy to assume that most, if not all of the material here is really recent, and comes from a complete blank slate. Thus, EUSEXUA is placed at a sort of crossroads between her wanting to continue pursuing the pop sensibilities of her most recent mixtape CAPRISONGS and her early work’s ambient pop experimentation. She takes all of those elements and adds electronic music instrumentation to truly create a new experience, and the songs are constantly twisting and turning between styles, much like a hallucinating drug trip, starting in one place and ending in a completely different one. Some of the pop song attempts don’t work as well as they should (“Girl Feels Good”, “Perfect Stranger”) and on that front CAPRISONGS works a lot better (that mixtape is overall criminally underrated), further the songs that are experimental and the songs that are radio-friendly feel really separated from each other rather than mixing the two together: the album has 2 completely different sides that it switches between throughout the tracklist.

The rave aesthetic is present sonically with trance/house and garage influences mixed with her low-key, delicate R&B singing and minimalistic production style. This works very well because Twigs’ experimental progressive sensibilities feel right at home in techno production where every single element added one by one to the instrumental feels like an event (like in the opening track and “Room Of Fools” for example).

“Drums of Death” is fantastic and a highlight of the album, with its unorthodox yet catchy drums and glitchy vocals, the song keeps building upon itself with layers of noises and voices, as it reaches the euphoric chorus. It definitely was an amazing intro to the world of EUSEXUA being the first music video. “Room of Fools” is a very nice techno cut where Twigs does her best Björk impression. Some slower, more emotional cuts like “Sticky” and “24hr Dog” use Twigs’ soft and quiet voice as an electronic instrument. “Striptease” feels like the centerpiece of the second half of the album, and stands as an emotional climax. It starts as a trap song, but, like often with Twigs, nothing is ever quite what it seems as it morphes into some electronic mix of drum & bass and jersey club, as her rapping slows to a robotic, halted pace and her vocals reach high-pitched registers. It also feels like one of the few songs that truly embraces everything EUSEXUA has to offer in terms of variety of sounds, with the sung R&B, electronic music styles, catchy choruses and experimentation being represented.

EUSEXUA also generated quite a lot of conversations through the controversial decision of featuring the 11-year old daughter of a famous bipolar neonazi, one who likes to call himself “yeezus” or “yandhi”, (although these days “yedolf” fits him better) on the track "Childlike Things". The feature does feel somewhat unnecessary and the song would have been fine without North West’s Japanese rapping about Jesus (Again, I'm not making this up). It feels even more awkward considering her father’s precedent, but it doesn’t take me out of the song too much and fits the childish theme. Unfortunately for anyone with morals, the song is insanely catchy, and the very purposefully dumb chorus and Latin bounce in the drums makes me think of a housier version of “No Hay Ley Parte 2” by Kali Uchis.

The closer, “Wanderlust,” is an emotional, slow ballad. Twigs' voice is both presented in her most natural beauty, alongside being automated and pitched through autotune in some very pleasant experimentation which truly adds a robotic depth and emotion to her voice, in a way that only extensive autotune can. If EUSEXUA is all the highs and lows of being willfully trapped in an enclosed, sweaty rave in some brutalist-architecture underground club, “Wanderlust” is the emotional comedown of seeing the ray of lights of the morning hitting your face.

EUSEXUA is a very impressive effort in style in Twigs’ discography. Although, unfortunately, it doesn’t reach the experimental heights of her earlier projects or the versatility and pop appeal of CAPRISONGS, I love how consistent and atmospheric it is as a full album experience and how ambitious it is at defining and representing a mentality. It is also just pure fun at a lot of points. (Although I will never forgive her for cancelling Primavera Sound twice in a row. Can you imagine going to a festival two years in a row and both times one of your most anticipated artists is on the lineup but drops out the week before? I don’t have to, but if you really want to experience that pain, she is still booked for next year’s edition.)