On the latest single from the upcoming studio album, FKA Twigs expands the universe of Eusexua toward pure pop territory. Perfect Stranger is a mid-tempo slow burner, a bad romance in rubber that whispered breathlessly by Twigs, or cooed like a sticky lullaby. “I’d rather know nothing than all the lies,” she confesses, preferring the excitement of the unknown.
Perfect Stranger shares the expansiveness of Eusexua’s eponymous lead single, with Twigs once again drawing from club music. A rapturous breakbeat that pulls from UK garage while simultaneously dousing it in honey plays out beneath Twigs’ hushed vocals.
Unlike its predecessor, though, Perfect Stranger is committed to a more conventional pop formula – there are no big swings or avant-garde twists to be found here. It’s the most accessible Twigs has been since her radio-friendly turn on Caprisongs, and she very much plays the part.
In the track’s accompanying music video, various vignettes depicting the lives of everyday people and some surreal fetish fantasies are staged in an open faced apartment block. It heightens the dangerous erotics of Twigs’ object of desire – something or someone painfully enticing, yet completely unknown.
