After five years of record silence, Fka Twigs returns with “Eusexua”, an album that explores unpublished sensory territories, combining eroticism, spirituality and hypnotic electronics.
The British artist (his real name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett) invites us to a fluid space where body and soul meet, challenging the boundaries of perception and connection.
The disc winds through the title-manifesto. Eusexua is in fact his statement, a neologism that Twigs define as a transcendental state achievable through sex, meditation or music. It is not just a word, but a sound experience that vibrates along the 12 traces of the album, in a balance between intimacy and collective catharsis.
The disc opens with the title track Eusexua, A song that translates this state into a constant pulsation and enveloping synths, while Twigs aerial voice sings:
“And If they ask, you say you feel it, but don't call it love”.
An introduction that immediately reveals the emotional and sound direction of the album: a mix of sensuality and transcendence.
The next Girl Feels Good It is a hymn to the celebration of female pleasure, in which Synth reverberating and distorted melodies intertwine to create an almost alien and psychedelic experience. “When a Girl Feels Good, It Makes the World Go Around”, proclaims Twigs, transforming the track into a celebration of universal sensuality.
Each song of “Eusexua” evolves, dancing between genres and influences, from the garage-alien of Perfect Stranger, Moving on to dancefloor which becomes a collective ritual as in the dystopian techno Drums of Death or Room of Foolssong written in the bathroom of a club during the filming of The Crow, is driven by a deep bass and a frenetic rhythmic structure that simulates the intensity of a night in the disco.
With Sticky Cragiola fka in a liquid melancholy that somehow recalls Bjork. The depth continues in Keep it, hold it Sweet that winds on an almost obsessive and repetitive keyboard and then open up in electronic beats.
The pace resumes with Childlike Things, One of the best pieces, where Fka confronts a Hyperpop with North West, the eleven year old daughter from Kanye West who plays with FKA by getting ready in Japanese.
The emotional depth of “Eusexua” continues with “striptease”, where Fka undresses metaphorically, revealing fragility and desire through minimalist electronics, characterized by ethereal synths and a melody that evolves into a storm Drum'n'bass.
Opening Me Feels Like a striptease, “he admits, transforming vulnerability into a form of power.
Closes the disc 24hr dog, The total abandonment to a partner, in a hypnotic and rarefied atmosphere made of ambient pads and slow pulsations and Wanderlust perhaps the song that has the most marked pop melodic structure.
The production, treated together with Koress, is precise and depth: metal sounds, glitches, vocal fragments and complex beat intertwine to create an alien but accessible sound universe.
The voice of Fka Twigs, light but titanic, remains at the center: it evokes, whispers, scratches and is lost, adapting to any emotional nuance. It is the common thread of a disc which, although flirting with pop, remains faithful to its experimental nature.
“Eusexua” is not just an album, but an experience. FKA Twigs once again proves to be one of the most innovative and courageous voices of the contemporary scene, transforming the dance floor and its surroundings into a free and fluid space.
To listen immediately
Room of Fools – Sticky – Childlike Things (feat. North West)
To skip immediately
Nothing! We must immerse yourself in FKA's sensory experience and in his future vision of pop.
Score: 8.00
EUSEXUA – 8.00 vote
Girl Feels Good – 7.50 vote
Perfect Stranger – 7.75 vote
Drums of Death (feat. Koress)- 7.75 vote
Room of Fools – 8.00 vote
Sticky – 8.00 vote
Keep it, Hold it – 7.50 vote
Childlike Things (feat. North West) vote 8.00
Striptease – vote 7.75
24Hr Dog – 8.00 vote
Wanderlust –
The votes of others
NME: vote 10.00
Consequence: vote 9.10
Pitchfork: 9.10 vote
The independence: 8.00 vote
The observer: vote 8, oo
Rolling Stone: 8.00 vote
The New York Time: 8.00 vote
The Guardian: 8.00 vote
