Bleep

In 2014 came a total blindside from leftfield, a completely new artist whose voice and vision were already fully realised. The decade since FKA twigs’ debut LP1 has seen her move through many spaces, embody countless personas, and redraw the blueprints for the long intertwining worlds of art and pop. Thus, her third studio album EUSEXUA feels like what her entire career has been leading up to all along: a slick and effortless singularity of techno, pop, art, and catharsis.

A heartbeat with the force of a thunderstorm pulses in, then throws us into a world of throbbing tension filled trance synths and thumping empathic dance pop pianos. twigs’ recalibration in the techno underground of Prague lives richly in these sounds, surfacing with burning passion in the opening title track, a cry for connection doubling as the album’s mission statement. At times that mission manifests in luscious awe, soul-baring lyrics giving way to vivid imagery as gemstones of vocal pinpricks rain down, speaking to the album title’s definition of timeblind transcendence. At others, it’s grimy and searing, with some of twigs’ most visceral work to date as commanding stomps and kicks drill into contorted slices of her voice. A contrast she elucidates ever so simply: “beautiful, untethered”.

But more often than not these two ends of the eusexual sonic spectrum collide as one. With engines at full throttle, twigs drives into vigorous club carnage awash in delicate melodies, musing on the ecstasy of deep connection with strangers in a way that only the dancefloor can facilitate. The characteristics of techno, house, and two step meet zither plucks drawing elegant arabesques, and folk decorations lingering at the edges of her voice.

EUSEXUA sits at the zenith of rave bliss, and the peak of FKA twigs’ career so far.