FKA twigs – Eusexua

On Eusexua, FKA twigs’ third album, she – alongside co-executive producer Koreless – infuses her avant-pop sensibilities and commercial dance music, harnessed with devastating surgical precision. Moments here nod to pop royalty at their very zenith: Girl Feels Good channels William Orbit-era Madonna with its late-90s shimmer, while Keep It, Hold It weaves Fairlight-esque chords and diaphanous backing vocals that feel lifted from Kate Bush’s The Ninth Wave. Yet each nostalgic echo quickly snaps back to serve Eusexua’s sensual, urgent thesis.

Even its oddities – yes, that is North West shouting at you in Japanese on Childlike Things – make sense as part of the album’s unrestrained exploration of human nature, from the Berghain-ready pounding of Room of Fools to the flesh ripping, bared soul of Striptease. The negative space of twigs’ earlier work has transformed into relentless, sybaritic energy, as twigs crosses the stylistic bridge of 2022’s CAPRISONGS into a fully-realised dancefloor conviction.

Whether in-tandem with heavyweights like Stuart Price and Stargate on the ice-cold Perfect Stranger or chopping up decade-old K-pop samples into aggressive new forms on the thundering Drums of Death, twigs doesn’t just conjure brilliance here – she seizes it. Eusexua demands 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.

Listen to: Girl Feels Good, Room of Fools, Striptease