What’s “Eusexua”? If last week’s teaser video had the rarefied atmosphere of a designer perfume ad, or perhaps the trailer for a sex toy with a mechanism too graphic for television, rest assured that FKA twigs is operating on a higher level. An adaptation of the Greek word “euphoria,” which originally described a state of good health, her new song “Eusexua” envisions a state of total sensual wellness. “If they ask you say you feel it, but don’t call it love,” twigs chirps: She’s not talking about an emotion shared with a specific person, something to be lost or found, but a more all-encompassing state of being.
Co-produced by twigs with Koreless and Eartheater, “Euseuxa” builds from a beat that pumps like a human heart into a beautiful, air-filled techno floor-filler with the balletic intricacy of one of twigs’ choreography routines. Look no further than the extended video, where she plays a mild-mannered office worker with a liberating secret. Remember that old tip for overcoming public-speaking jitters, to imagine the audience naked? In “Eusexua,” bodies disrobe to reveal (through dance, naturally) a new set of relationships to motion, physics, and one another. Turns out all those workplace repetitive-motion injuries—the tapping keys and stapling staplers—were just a temporary outlet for latent erotic powers.