Tuesday Tunes: FKA twigs’ ‘Eusexua’

Visionary multidisciplinary musical artist FKA twigs beckons us closer into her feeling-infused world with her third studio album, “EUSEXUA,” released on Jan. 24. 

Twigs defined “eusexua,” a term she coined, in an interview with NPR.

“It’s pure presence. It’s a moment of nothingness. Or it’s the moment before a really incredible idea. I’ve experienced ‘eusexua’ when kissing someone I don’t know really well, but I really like. So it’s this ego-less presence which is just filled with this kind of tingling clarity,” twigs said.

Twigs can perhaps be best described as a method singer when it comes to the way she immerses herself in the creation of her work. As a musician, she crafts a distinctive vocal soundscape that toes the line between being eerily ethereal in its aesthetic presentation and inexplicably human in the emotions and primal feelings she rouses within listeners. With a background in dance, she showcases her understanding of the body as another kind of instrument. For each album cycle, she takes up a physical craft that she often presents in music videos. As she described to singer-songwriter Imogen Heap in Spotify’s “Countdown To” series, for her first studio album, “LP1,” she learned voguing. For her second studio album, “MAGDALENE,” she learned pole dancing and wushu.

The way twigs creates a convergence between sound and physicality sets her apart as an artist wholly devoted to living her craft in a way that transcends mere vocals. For “EUSEXUA,” she took this a step further by creating a practice of her own called The Eleven, a somatic healing movement meditation founded upon 11 aspects of life that prepare one to experience “eusexua.”

Twigs has transformed her musings into a fleshed-out philosophy of life that transcends her album. In an Instagram post prior to the release of “EUSEXUA,” twigs described the journey that went into its production.

“This year I have been making my album in cabs in Berlin, huts in Big Sur, caves in Ibiza, roads in Hackney. I have written lyrics by lakes in Prague and in the toilets of raves with a biro on the back of my hand,” she said on the post.

The lived experiences twigs gained through her travels — with an emphasis on Prague’s techno rave scene — are succinctly reflected in the dynamic, visceral nature of each song, expressed through her signature feminine-energy-laden vocal aerobics. 

Throughout the album, twigs conjures the spirit of techno and electronic music. At the same time, she refuses stagnancy by adding intriguing elements and changes of pace within her songs just as listeners are getting familiar with the sound. Oscillations between adrenaline-inducing beats, soaring vocal riffs and hissing are commonplace. Twigs transports listeners into the intriguing environments involved in the album’s creation through the way she propels the beat at breakneck speed, then mellows out into airy, intimate vocals. Through a union between technology and humanity, twigs continues to offset conventions, striking a balance between resonance and discordance. 

For example, the seventh track, “Keep It, Hold It,” sets a marchlike, languid rhythm interwoven with Twig’s fluid, water-like vocals. Then, in the second half, the beat crescendos into something buoyant and irresistibly danceable. 

The playful “Childlike Things” immediately follows this, with twigs playfully boasting her “supersonic powers.” It unexpectedly features a verse rapped in Japanese by North West. “Striptease” continues this energetic pace, ultimately morphing into an amalgamation of soaring, weightless vocal ululations. The album then takes a slower yet metallically penetrating pace for “24hr Dog” and closes out with the more lyric-laden “Wanderlust.”

While speaking with Heap, twigs reflected on “EUSEXUA.”

“‘EUSEXUA’ is really this mixture of this slightly psychedelic, childlike, playful exploration of what it is to be human but then mixed with that — this raw, dirty, hard, sexual grit as an undertone … which is what it’s like to be human.”

At one point during the conversation, in an enchanting display of artistic collaboration, the two artists engage in a vocal improvisation session. Heap presented a microphone and a pair of gloves that give her the ability to in a sense, catch sound in the air and manipulate it, punctuating the space with reverbs and echoing sound. It is enthralling to see an innate understanding between two creative minds at work in their field, perhaps even entering the amorphic headspace of  “eusexua” together.

While this is a personal album for twigs, she emphasizes in the conversation that “eusexua” is universal — something everyone finds through moments of play, presence and absolution of loneliness within their own niche communities. “EUSEXUA” presents a human experience that tethers us all.

Twigs’ first destination for her “EUSEXUA” tour will be Prague, where it all started for the artist, on March 8.

Tessa Kang is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer. She can be reached at tokang@uci.edu.

Edited by Jaheem Conley.

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