Euseuxa, Do You Feel it Too?

Eusexua, according to FKA Twigs, “is a feeling of complete presence.” It’s time hatching, fragmenting into gripping moments. It’s losing yourself to the dance floor, kissing a stranger for hours, or soaking in that egoless intoxication right before an orgasm— all of it is eusexua. The word—which Twigs invented—titles her third studio album, a conceptual project as sexually assertive as it is insecure and desirous. Twigs maintains this strong thematic throughout, packing EUSEXUA (2025) with abstractions on softness, power, and intimacy. Impassioned lyrics, tenderly calloused vocals, and ever-contorting BPMs organically harmonize on EUSEXUA; it’s the sonic equivalent to DNA re-replication. 

FKA Twigs, the stage name of artistic polymath Thaliah Debrett Barnett, can’t create under stagnancy. When producing, Twigs is only in-the-zone working under chaos; for EUSEXUA, she invited multiple collaborators to send fractions of songs to be frankenstein-ed together. For every album cycle, she masters a new skill: for LP1 (2014), it was voguing, and for MAGDALENE (2019), it was pole dancing and Wushu. Her commitment to nonconformity is one that began early on; Twigs began ballet when she was eight and became a professional dancer at 13, but soon, disillusioned, rejected ballet’s restrictions saying, “you had to be white and blond and a rake and not have an [EXPLETIVE] and have a pelvis that could tuck under for days.” This mentality was the birth of EUSEXUA, metaphysically and literally; the album’s first song was conceptualized when she was just 13 (the track is aptly named “Childlike Things”). EUSEXUA’s lengthy genesis was worth it, as it contains the most admirable qualities of all of Twigs’s past projects: the danceability of her CAPRISONGS (2022) mixtape, the thematic centeredness of MAGDALENE, and the avant garde of LP1. If this were Pokémon, EUSEXUA could be considered Twigs’s final evolution. 

Pop stars transitioning to club music is slowly becoming a trope, with recent examples including Charli xcx’s BRAT (2024) and Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE (2022). These artists have managed to maintain a unique sound by paying homage to specific niches within club music: for Charli, it was the Y2K era, and for Beyoncé, it was ballroom. Twigs follows suit, styling Eusexua after techno rave. Twigs, ever the genre-bender, is still game to flirt with a multitude of influences, even those far outside of techno. An example is the outstandingly bizarre “Childlike Things” with North West (yes, the North Kardashian West). It’s an unexpected blend of cultures,  ranging from 2000s J-pop to Euro-pop (think the energy of “Hello Kitty” by Avril Lavigne or Gwen Stefani’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004)). The most outlandish part of the song, however, is North West’s verse, where she praises Jesus in Japanese: “イエス様 王様 / 神様賞賛” (Jesus, the king / Praise the Lord). It’s a head scratcher just as much as it is a head bobber, as the track’s hyperactivity is (annoyingly) infectious. 

Outside of this outlier, the tracklist remains tonally consistent. On “Girl Feels Good,” Twigs directly channels Madonna’s Ray of Light (1998) era, with its meditative yet incredibly groovy descending bassline. This marriage of cerebral danceability is a constant on the record. The title track “Eusexua” progresses from tense, thumping arpeggiators to theatrical synthesizers. Twigs doesn’t always give the courtesy of a buildup when a song transitions, however. On “Sticky,” Twigs breaks the track’s steady atmosphere with a crushing wall of electronic noise, and on “Keep it, Hold it,” she interrupts plucked piano strings with breakneck drums and a shriek: “Sometimes I feel like I’m not even trying.” 

The sonic steel which reinforces EUSEXUA into another echelon of excellence is Twigs’s voice. It’s an instrument of its own, gliding above layered synths and ducking between rattling glitches. It is light yet intense, possessing a feathered strength that gives her take on techno an irreplicable texture. This trait also allows for great versatility, shown through the soaring vocalizations on the intoxicating “Striptease” and the carnal growls on the ever-lilting “Room Of Fools.” 

The chopped-up, industrial club sound on “Drums of Death” tightly fits its sexually voracious lyrical content; Twigs commands, “Drop your skirt to the floor [...] Shed your skin / Rip your shirt, flesh exposed / Feel hot, feel hard, feel heat / [EXPLETIVE] who you want / Babygirl, do it just for fun.” This call for erotic liberation, surrounded by the flux of glitching, pounding drums, is the closest EUSEXUA gets to achieving, well, Eusexua. 

Although the definition of EUSEXUA emphasizes losing oneself in bliss, much of the album’s emotional content is spent in pained yearning, desperate for a connection that could spark the coveted feeling. On the title track, Twigs sings, “King-sized, I’m vertical sunrised / Like flying capsized / Free, I see you are.” Here, she is a venereal goddess, sure and serene in her sexuality. The tracks “Perfect Stranger” and “24hr Dog,” although tonally distinct, both relate Twigs’s desire to lose herself in anonymous intimacy: “What we don’t know will never hurt / ‘Cause you’re a stranger, so you’re perfect.” The less she knows, the stronger the eusexua; the stronger the eusexua, the better the sex. However, on “24hr Dog,” there’s a starved sorrow in how Twigs sings “Please don’t call my name/ When I submit to you this way.” She needs submission, desperate to relinquish power to someone who just can’t fulfill her desires. The closing track, “Wanderlust,” doesn’t cleanly resolve her craving to please others, as she still promises: “If I don’t wake up Monday morning / I’ll make it up to you, babe.” She does, however, somewhat conclude the album’s emotional arc by acknowledging her insecurities, and deciding to live lost, in “pure wanderlust.” Twigs imparts advice upon her listeners, “ You’ve one life to live, do it freely / It’s your choice to break or believe in it / I’ll be in my head if you need me.” This advice cements the idea that eusexua isn’t just contained in moments of sexual ecstasy or nightlong clubbing.

 Although the perceived hypersexuality of eusexua as a concept may turn people away from taking it seriously, ultimately, the listener has the autonomy to decide what euseuxa means for themselves. Freedom from romantic love can be just as fulfilling as being in it. What leaves your body when you die is “life in motion / Mistakes in motion / [and] Misplaced emotions,” but what remains is a body in eusexua.