Arca - Xen

Arca

Xen

4 November 2014

Mute

 

4 stars out of 5

 

 

Venezuelan producer Alejandro Ghersi composes some highly unusual electronic music under the name Arca. Having done production for four tracks on Kanye West’s Yeezus and FKA twigs’s EP2, one might expect Arca’s own material to be hip hop/R&B-centric, but in truth it’s on the fringes of the electronica avant-garde. There are no dope beats here—indeed, the majority of these tracks have no beats at all—rather, Ghersi’s flow is in his melodies, built from many disparate and fractured parts into a mesmerizing whole, and liable to change tempo and direction frequently and without warning.

 

While it isn’t high concept art-tronica, featuring grand themes and deep philosophical statements, Xen is experimental in the way that Autechre is: Ghersi gets right inside the sounds and pulls them inside out, turning the creation of new sounds into its own joyful goal. The title track is a good example of the Arca vision in full realization: every sound analyzed and questioned, every assumption discarded, every tradition tossed out, with the resulting music being completely new (although, granted, still using some tropes of the “normal” music, such as the chromatic scale). If you’re looking for a new way to hear music, Xen is a good place to begin your journey.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger