Eusexua (stylised in all caps) is the third studio album by English singer FKA Twigs, released on 24 January 2025 through Young and Atlantic Records. It marks her first studio album in five years, following Magdalene (2019), and her first full body of work in over three years, following the mixtape Caprisongs (2022). It contains guest appearances from Koreless and North West; the latter performs in Japanese.
The album has received acclaim from music critics praising the production style, vocal performances, and songwriting. "Eusexua" is also the title track and lead single off the album, released 13 September 2024. "Perfect Stranger" and "Drums of Death" were the other two singles, released roughly a month apart. To promote the album, Twigs is set to embark on the Eusexua Tour in 2025.
Background
On 15 March 2023, the then-unnamed track "Striptease" was used in a Calvin Klein advertising campaign, in which Twigs also appeared.[4] On 1 October 2023, she performed in Valentino's show at Paris Fashion Week; the performance, entitled Unearth Her, included tracks recorded with longtime collaborator and producer Koreless for her then-upcoming album. According to Alex Rigotti of NME, the previewed songs "seemed to be influenced by thrumming techno and dreamy tranceinstrumentals".[5]
Twigs first began teasing the album in January 2024 through a string of posts on her Discord. Having relocated to Prague "a couple summers" prior to work on The Crow (2024), she fell in love with techno; while she explained that the album would not consist of that genre but would bear its "spirit", and she described it as "deep but not sad".[6][4] She further revealed that she had teamed up with electronic duo Two Shell who helped her craft the era from scratch after 85 of her demos were leaked in October 2023.[7] In an interview with British Vogue in March 2024, she explained the meaning behind the word "eusexua", saying that she came up with it to describe the "sensation of being so euphoric" that one could "transcend human form".[8] On 22 August 2024 on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Twigs told the guest host RuPaul: "I'm obsessed with alternative cultures and subcultures, so to be somewhere brand new that I'd never been, that kind of amazing East Bloc techno warehouse raves, techno kids, I just couldn't resist."[9]
North West features as a rapper on the track "Childlike Things", performing in English and Japanese.[10]
Release and promotion
Twigs premiered the "techno-inspired" album in its entirety at a New York City listening party on 20 August 2024.[11] The intimate listening party took place in the Lower East Side neighbourhood of Manhattan that saw the singer wearing a brown corset top with brown boots and a brown wig in her hand.[12] On 31 August, she shared a picture of a poster asking "Have you experienced eusexua?" with the title track released as the lead single on 13 September 2024.[13][14] The album was set to be released on 24 January 2025 and it would contain 11 tracks. The "Eusexua" music video, directed by Jordan Hemingway, was released the same day as the single.[15] The prelude of the video features a preview of another album track, "Drums of Death".[16]
Soon after announcing the album, Twigs performed two unreleased tracks, entitled "Room of Fools" and "Girl Feels Good", live at an event hosted by On Running during London Fashion Week.[17] On 17 October 2024, she released "Perfect Stranger" as the second single from the album. Its accompanying music video was released the same day; it was directed by Hemingway, and featured appearances from actress/writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, fashion designer Mowalola Ogunlesi and musician Yves Tumor, among others.[18] "Drums of Death" was released as the third single on 14 November. Its instrumental was conceived by Koreless, who is featured on the song, on a flight to Berlin ahead of his performance at Berghain.[19]
On 6 December, Anyma released his remix of "Eusexua".[20] On 28 December, Twigs joined him on stage at the Sphere to perform the remix, while a video of herself dancing displayed on the LED screen above her.[21] To support the album, the Eusexua Tour was announced on 16 January 2025.[22]
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Eusexua received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 from 24 critic scores.[24] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.4 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[23]
Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Heather Phares called it a collection "some of [FKA Twigs'] most physical, confessional, and empowering songs" and wrote that Twigs, "has guided listeners through a remarkably honest song cycle. The complexities are where her music thrives, and Eusexua abounds with them."[25] In a five star review for The Skinny by Rhys Morgan, Eusexua was applauded for its concept demanding "both surrender and celebration; it doesn't just embrace the thrust of commercial dance, it subsumes it into the chromatic, honed prism of Twigs' artistry".[33]Pitchfork's Rich Juzwiak gave the album notable praise, calling it a "masterful pop-star moment" and drawing comparisons to Madonna's Ray of Light and Disclosure's "You & Me".[31]
Writing for NME, Aneesa Ahmed lauded Eusexua for being a "cohesive and transcendent artistic experience", while additionally noting that the production "rawly explores eroticism and the power of submission".[30] A four star review by Julyssa Lopez in Rolling Stone noted a mashup of "techno beats, house production, and unforgiving industrial tones" on the album, and highlighted the track "Sticky" as a standout due to its similarities to Björk and Kate Bush vocal performances.[32] Similarly, Helen Brown of The Independent commended the record's complexity, saying it is "a dialled-down bed of house beats, delicate synths and shimmering harps".[28]
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