She always manages to make experimental pop sound new and exciting and yet suitable for the masses.
What could you call a moment of absolute, transcendent euphoria? FKA Twigs aka Tahliah Barnett had an idea: EUSEXUA. And this neologism also gives the title to their third album, five years after MAGDALENE and three years after the mixtape CAPRISONGS. And as with every previous release, the British singer and dancer has created her very own aesthetic world around EUSEXUA. While CAPRISONGS indicated a move towards the musical mainstream with its embrace of pop and hedonism, it’s now back to the experimental sound that made FKA Twigs the darling of music nerds and club girls.
But maybe it’s also the case that the experimental sound has now arrived at the heart of pop – Tiktok star Addison Rae is collaborating with Venezuelan producer Arca and Charli XCX has finally made it to superstardom with perhaps the least “pop” album of her career . And just like her colleague Charli, FKA Twigs also ends up in the club with EUSEXUA: this time her source of inspiration was techno bunkers, she says in interviews. More precisely: brutalist techno clubs in Prague, where she spent a lot of time filming the mercilessly failed “The Crow” remake in 2022. At least the film flop was apparently not entirely in vain, because as catastrophically wrong as the remake of the nineties classic was, what it inspired FKA Twigs to do is just as great.
No lovefest this time, but the hard bass and intense feelings of the night
While MAGDALENE was still about destructive heartbreaks and new beginnings, this time it’s more about club music and euphoria on the dance floor – and judging by the last few years of the artist, who has to deal with legal proceedings from and against her allegedly abusive ex Shia LaBeouf, She was more than granted this moment of letting go. But there is no drunken lovefest here, no dancing in the sun with the besties. No, FKA Twigs prefers the more experimental nights, the harder bass and the more intense feelings.
As if the album follows the course of a night, it traces emotional highs and lows, combining heaviness and nostalgic pop moments. For example, in the opener “Eusexua” (which, among other things, her new BFF, the experimental pop princess Eartheater, co-wrote and produced) or the cathartic “Drums Of Death” (whose co-producer Koreless, according to legend, recorded the characteristic beat directly in Berghain should have – of course gives the whole thing the desired pinch of realness). “Girl Feels Good”, on the other hand, is reminiscent of Madonna’s “Ray Of Light” and Massive Attack in the nineties, just as “Striptease” also evokes the heyday of trip hop – albeit with a bass that clearly transplants FKA Twigs into today.
And EUSEXUA even captures the weightlessness of an after-hours and the hangover afterwards, with “24hr Dog,” which floats between lightness and darkness, and the nineties alt-pop revival “Wanderlust” as a hopeful conclusion. FKA Twigs proves it once again with every album: She is a star for the big stage and always manages to make pop sound new, exciting and absolutely independent.
You can find out which albums will be released in January 2025 via our monthly release list.