It would be really easy to get hung up on the definition for this album. Is it a new sexuality term? A holiday genre of technopop? A planet that will align with the others on January 29th?
English singer Tahliah Debrett Barnett, aka FKA Twig, describes via X, that "eusexua is a practice, eusexua is a state of being, eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience".
Conceptually, this is certainly an album that seeks a transcendental state of purity and perfection, through almost psychedelic experimentation in electronica, pop and progressive house via tinkling, abstract vocals and a mellifluous merge of forms.
The title track sets the tone of surreal ambiguity with the lyrics: “Words cannot describe baby, This feeling deep inside” and goes on to describe “I’m vertical sunrise, Like flying capsized”. Cue quizzical face as I nod along to the tantalising, insistent beat and get drawn into the soaring sheeny melodies, starting to buy into the idea of music that can, ayahuasca-like, incite a state of being.
The album flows through various electronic landscapes: “Girl Feels Good” struts around nostalgic dance floors; grows comfortably into the tangible frisson of presence in “Perfect Stranger” and echoing beats reverberate in “Keep It, Hold It”. Innovation begins to flourish in the glitchy trip, “Drums of Death” ending with the ominous line: “Crash the system diva doll, serve violence”. Avant garde merges with ethereality in “Room of Fools” before the Japanese infused quirks of “Childlike Things” and mellow nursery rhyme riffs of “24hr Dog”. The album finds balance in more stripped-back tracks like “Wanderlust”, “Sticky” and “Striptease”, where Twigs’s vocal strength and emotionally contemplative beauty shine.
It’s this ability to hold both futuristic experimentation and vulnerable authenticity that cements Twigs as one of contemporary popular music’s most innovative artists, creating an experience that, while perhaps indefinable, is undeniably transformative.
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