If you pay attention to current events, this week is a big week

For me and my interests, there is no new record I’ve been looking forward to more than FKA twigs’ Eusexua which arrives this Friday through Young and Atlantic Records.

From Tahliah Debrett Barnett’s first EP1 in 2012 I figured we were in for something different, something other, and her first full length LP1 from 2014 followed the next year by M3LL155X and Magdalene in 2019 proved me wrong—I didn’t foresee that much different.

“Oh man, oh my goodness, I’ve never seen anything like that before. Oh my God.”

I think Jimmy Fallon said it best, commenting on her 2014 Tonight Show performance of single “2 Week” from LP1 with air sculpture from artist Daniel Wurtzel. These elements—dance, art, song, and performance–were certainly nothing new, but the FKA twigs version certainly was. I’d never seen anything quite like that before.

The album covers gave us more than a hint at her interest in physical transformation and as Barnett worked on her dance/performance skills, she sculpted her body into a finer-honed work in and of itself while seamlessly blending genres.

Here’s Barnett:

It’s just because I’m mixed race. When I first released music and no one knew what I looked like, I would read comments like: ‘I’ve never heard anything like this before, it’s not in a genre.’ And then my picture came out six months later, now she’s an R&B singer. I share certain sonic threads with classical music; my song ‘Preface’ is like a hymn. So let’s talk about that. If I was white and blonde and said I went to church all the time, you’d be talking about the ‘choral aspect’. But you’re not talking about that because I’m a mixed-race girl from south London.

With sex, sexuality, pleasure, and pain inextricably part of her transformative story.

But all of that didn’t prepare me for the full red pill swallow of Eusexua. I see it as a celebration, a celebration of inner life turned out and our ability to overcome the confines, restrictions, and barriers of the day-to-day. The nine to five grind and what we do to ourselves to fit into that form and all of the extra unnecessary baggage that can come along with it.

My copy of FKA twigs’ Eusexua was pre-ordered months ago and it couldn’t be coming at a better time.

https://store.fkatwigsofficial.com