How much worse off we all are that pop stars have abandoned weirdness. Where once the genre had room for ethereal eccentrics (Björk) or implacable forces of nature (Madonna), artists now strive, above all, to be relatable.
You can see and hear it everywhere, whether it’s Sabrina Carpenter singing about coffee or Chappell Roan comparing herself to a straight-from-the-microwave ready meal with her megahit Hot to Go!
That one is a top tune but cold comfort to those who like their pop to shoot for distant galaxies. Amid this ongoing stampede of singer-next-door types, the return of Tahliah Barnett – aka the shape-shifting free spirit FKA twigs – with her gripping new album is, therefore, a reason to be cheerful.
Mysterious, playful, witty, sensual and catchy, Eusexua is a celestial tour de force. The LP is an epic plunge into a pop universe where the goal is for the artist to sound as enigmatic and unattainable as possible. She’s nobody’s espresso. And, although Eusexua does not lack for singalong moments, the overall sense is of a musician chasing their own destiny, with the audience welcome to tag along but by no means crucial to the journey. At no point is there a sense that she wants to be the listener’s best friend.
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Barnett grew up in Cheltenham, the daughter of an English gymnast mother and a Jamaican musician father. A scholarship student, she studied at the Brit School, the star factory that produced Adele and Amy Winehouse, among others. That led to gainful employment as a backing dancer for Kylie Minogue, Jessie J and, a bit improbably, Ed Sheeran.
As a dancer, actor or musician she has never pandered to a mainstream audience. Indeed, at times she has gone out of her way to weed out the indecisive listener, with songs that sound like Kate Bush stranded in Middle-earth and a sartorial instinct that lands somewhere between Paris Fashion Week and peak Adam Ant.
But there have been missteps, too. Caprisongs, her 2022 mixtape, was an excellent reconnection with her clubbing roots but a jarring turn away from the haunting grandeur of Magdalene: that album, from 2019, was her masterpiece, a stormy meditation on her break-up from the actor Robert Pattinson that blended electronica, hip-hop and, according to the artist, Bulgarian folk.
FKA twigs then mucked up properly when playing the doomed love interest in Rupert Sanders’s dreadful reboot of the gothic superhero movie The Crow. Here was an attempt to redo a perfect film that insulted the memory of the original’s star, the late Brandon Lee, while making no attempt appeal to younger audiences.
What a relief, then, that after getting her fans in a flap with The Crow, she is soaring once again on the ethereal and engaging Eusexua. It’s a concept LP of sorts, the big idea being that sensuality, dance and music can exist in perfect harmony. Or, to quote the artist, “a sensation of euphoria so intense it feels like one transcends human form”.
In practice that translates to a hinterland of slipstream melodies and folk-horror dance beats. Some of the credit for the latter must to go the Welsh producer Lewis Roberts, aka Koreless, who in 2021 released one of the year’s most terrifying singles in Black Rainbow; the video featured mad jesters jumping on a hill to blood-curdling effect. (It was partly inspired by the 1970s folk-horror classic Penda’s Fen.)
But, along with the chills and dark shadows, there is no lack of sunshine and joy throughout Eusexua. Girl Feels Good is a euphoric Valentine to feminine liberation. Drums of Death blends big handclap grooves with stuttering vocals before erupting into a stomping Auto-Tuned hook, while Childlike Things has the juggernaut-like tweeness of a K-pop chart-topper.
Eusexua is an album that works best as a sort of hyperengaging meditative tool rather than a collection of bangers. On the heels of the dance floor-adjacent joys of Caprisongs, FKA twigs is now demanding something more from the listener. She may have serenaded the thrill of a fast hook on another standout track, Perfect Stranger, but this isn’t a record to casually flirt with when the mood takes. It is far more contradictory: a celebration of fleeting pleasure that will appeal best to true Twigs soulmates.
