Eusexua: FKA Twigs’ Dance Between the Euphoric and Dysphoric

With her third studio album, Eusexua, FKA Twigs depicts a transcendent journey of hedonism, reflection, and the yearning for human connection.

Eusexua is a hypnotic tapestry of the euphoric and dysphoric. This latest release is much-anticipated, with the London-born singer (Tahlia Debrett Barnett) not releasing an album since Magdalene in 2019.

 Foregrounding the themes of the collection, ‘Eusexua’ (#1) starts with a pulsating beat, recalling both a quickened pulse and the techno vibrations of a nightclub.

She asks, ‘do you feel alone?’ and ‘wonder how you feel’, contemplating the physical and social barriers between one another. If this album is a journey, its destination is pinpointed in ‘Eusexua’ - interconnection.

Twigs’ solution to her loneliness and ‘shyness’ is found in the anonymity of nightclubs and the fleeting arms of strangers. The reflective quality of ‘Eusexua’ is hardened by its successor, ‘Girl Feels Good’. The tone is murkier, as she is about to ‘turn your love up loud to keep the devil down’. She is on a mission to ‘feel good’ and escape her problems.

‘Drums of Death’ (#4) and ‘Childlike Things’ (#8) are more overtly hedonistic, championing the freedom to ‘f*** whoever you want’ and ‘get lost in a world of childlike things’.

Throughout Eusexua, songs of euphoric abandon are sobered by melancholic and disenchanted tracks like ‘Perfect Stranger’ (#3) and ‘Keep it, Hold it’ (#7). Twigs lays bare the transitory nature of escapism, and that issues shrouded by night will resurface in the morning.

One of the most striking tracks on the album is ‘Striptease’ (#9). She combines the sexual, carnal aspects of human connection with the intellectual and emotional, merging the two contrasting tones of ‘Drums of Death’ and ‘Keep it, Hold it’.

‘It’s getting late, I feel alive’ she sings, likening revealing her inner world to the act of undressing, exposing her vulnerabilities bit by anticipatory bit.

The chorus, ‘opening me feels like a striptease’, is particularly excellent. As well as the blatant sexual connotations, the macabre imagery of surgically opening her lurks underneath. Unlike a striptease, this insinuation is painful and invasive, suggesting that ‘opening’ her is pleasurable to her sexual partner, while to her detriment.

With the trial against ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf commencing in September 2025, in which Barnett accuses him of sexual battery and assault, her lyrics concerning sexual violation and exploitation are particularly salient.

Pairing sex with pain and implying that women are inherently objects of desire is echoed throughout the predecessor Magdalene (2019). The title track ‘Mary Magdalene’, referencing the supposed biblical prostitute, describes her as a ‘creature of desire’ – a subhuman thing made to please.

Eusexua is a stunning strobic compilation, flickering between euphoria and disillusionment, flashing her demons before shrouding them in escapism and detachment.

The album offers a thrilling glimpse into FKA Twigs’ movement towards the techno scene, while remaining a powerful testament to the candid and introspective lyricism that has cemented her reputation.

Eusexua will be released on 25th January 2025.

Link to online article: https://overblown.co.uk/reviews/album/fka-twigs-eusexua-review/