Arca | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Alejandro Ghersi (aka Arca and Nuuro) is a Caracas-born, Brooklyn-based producer of lurching, abstract hip-hop. In 2012, he issued a trio of short-form releases for the UNO label: the four-track Baron Libre, the six-track Stretch 1, and the most substantial of the three, the ten-track -- but still EP-length -- Stretch 2. His work caught the ear of Kanye West, who sought him to co-produce four tracks for Yeezus: "Hold My Liquor," "Im in It," "Blood on the Leaves," and "Send It Up." That album was issued in June 2013. A month later, Arca released his own &&&&& for Hippos in Tanks, and he maintained his profile due to heavy involvement with FKA Twigs self-titled EP for Young Turks. A vinyl edition of &&&&& was made available the following January. In September 2014, the single "Thievery" became Arcas debut release for Mute; shortly thereafter, his first full-length for the label, Xen, arrived. Arca also co-produced FKA Twigs 2014 debut album, LP1, and Björks Vulnicura and Kelelas EP Hallucinogen in 2015. Early that year, he self-released Sheep, his score for a Hood by Air fashion show that featured samples of Björk, Lana Del Ray, and Robert Wyatt in its tracks. Several songs from Sheep appeared on Mutant, a dense, challenging set that Mute released in November 2015. The Entrañas mixtape featured a collaboration with Mica Levi and arrived in mid-2016. Arcas self-tltled, vocal-heavy XL debut appeared in 2017. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 10 Title: Baron Foyel Released: 2011-10-06 Tracks: 1 Duration: 31:44 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Baron Foyel (31:44) |
 | Album: 2 of 10 Title: Barón libre Released: 2012-02-01 Tracks: 4 Duration: 16:08 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Covenant (03:28) 2 Little Now A Lot (02:30) 3 Is This Love (02:40) 4 Spira (07:30) |
 | Album: 3 of 10 Title: Stretch 1 Released: 2012-04-19 Tracks: 6 Duration: 18:58 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Dignity (03:52) 2 Focus (02:28) 3 DOEP (02:51) 4 Walls (03:17) 5 Ass Swung Low (03:32) 6 Truly Carrying (02:58) |
 | Album: 4 of 10 Title: Stretch 2 Released: 2012-08-06 Tracks: 9 Duration: 26:48 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Self Defense (02:20) 2 Fortune (03:24) 3 Maiden Voyage (02:36) 4 2 Blunted (01:47) 5 Tapped In (02:34) 6 Strung (02:23) 7 Brokeup (02:52) 8 Meditation (04:11) 9 Manners (04:41) |
 | Album: 5 of 10 Title: &&&&& Released: 2013-07-23 Tracks: 1 Duration: 25:38 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 &&&&& (25:38) |
 | Album: 6 of 10 Title: Xen Released: 2014-10-29 Tracks: 16 Duration: 43:06 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Now You Know (03:58) 2 Held Apart (01:20) 3 Xen (03:18) 4 Sad Bitch (01:55) 5 Sisters (02:21) 6 Slit Thru (02:12) 7 Failed (03:40) 8 Family Violence (02:13) 9 Thievery (02:33) 10 Lonely Thugg (02:56) 11 Fish (02:07) 12 Wound (02:09) 13 Bullet Chained (02:51) 14 Tongue (02:59) 15 Promise (02:52) 16 Boyfriend (03:42) |
| Xen : Allmusic album Review : Arca (aka Alejandro Ghersi) proves his mastery of flux once again on Xen, an album where every aspect of his music is in glorious limbo. Unfettered by vocalists -- Kanye West and FKA Twigs are some of his highest-profile collaborators -- the producer takes his tracks in wild but uniquely balanced directions. Borrowing equally from classical and hip-hop inspirations, his impressionistic sounds flow, stutter, bounce off of, and crash into each other in ways that unite and elevate each element, whether on "Now You Know"s stark recombinations of strings, flute, and percussion or the dense, rumbling "Promise." Xens intricate miniatures recall Arcas mixtape &&&&&, but where that work unfolded like a 25-minute sound painting (and was even performed as an audiovisual piece at New Yorks Museum of Modern Art with collaborator Jesse Kanda), these tracks are more discrete. "Xen" itself is a satisfying microcosm of the entire album, packed full of sounds in a way thats challenging but never jumbled. Occasionally, Ghersi allows a beat to proceed more or less undisturbed: "Sisters," which pairs metallic tones with a drumbeat mutated from Princes "When the Doves Cry," approaches alien pop; "Thievery"s massive rhythm section nods to Arcas more club-friendly work but retains the uncanny feel of the albums more abstract moments. More often, though, he reconfigures sounds on an almost molecular level. He minces hip-hop into an ebbing, flowing mosaic on "Lonely Thugg," where buried vocal snippets underscore Xens unsettlingly organic feel. "Failed," one of a few melancholy and melodic interludes, recalls the way Oneohtrix Point Never chopped and pasted the melodramatic sounds of 80s New Age into new forms on R Plus Seven. However, Ghersi tempers cerebral soundplay with pure emotion, a move that gives Xen its own rich character and depth. The piano on the meditative "Held Apart" flows like tears in the rain, while "Sad Bitch" and "Wound" let their electronics sing just as beautifully as a human voice as they flicker between rapturous and mournful. The way Arca plays with and decorates time, letting sounds and moods mutate spontaneously, makes Xen a complete picture of his artistry and also promises much more. | ||
 | Album: 7 of 10 Title: Sheep Released: 2015-01-15 Tracks: 11 Duration: 00:00 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Matriarch (?) 2 Pity (?) 3 Drowning (?) 4 En (?) 5 Sifter (?) 6 Submissive (?) 7 Umbilical (?) 8 Hymn (?) 9 Don’t / Else (?) 10 At Last I Am Free (interlude) (?) 11 Immortal (?) |
 | Album: 8 of 10 Title: Mutant Released: 2015-11-18 Tracks: 21 Duration: 1:07:13 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Alive (03:56) 2 Mutant (07:27) 3 Vanity (04:16) 4 Sinner (03:35) 5 Anger (02:00) 6 Sever (02:13) 7 Beacon (00:48) 8 Snakes (04:50) 9 Else (02:30) 10 Umbilical (02:09) 11 Hymn (01:57) 12 Front Load (02:44) 13 Gratitud (03:44) 14 En (03:04) 15 Siren Interlude (00:43) 16 Extent (02:34) 17 Enveloped (02:22) 18 Faggot (03:10) 19 Soichiro (04:35) 20 Peonies (03:29) 21 Ashland (05:07) |
| Mutant : Allmusic album Review : Arcas Alejandro Ghersi remained as prolific as he was before projects like his highly acclaimed debut album Xen and his production work on Björks Vulnicura raised his profile. Just a few months after Xens release, Ghersi issued Sheep, a mixtape of music he composed for a Hood by Air fashion show. As an artist with a distinctive look and sound, Arcas connection to the fashion world made sense, but Sheep wasnt standard runway fare: with tracks that sampled the bleating of sheep and choral music (as well as the work of Björk, Robert Wyatt, and Lana Del Ray), it teetered between stylish and subversive, disturbing and poignant. Ghersi expands on this complicated headspace on Mutant, a set of tracks that feels like a hard-won celebration of individuality. A few of Sheeps pivotal moments reappear here, providing some of the albums touchstones. "Else" manages to be both delicate and heavy, while "Hymn"s intensity reaches fittingly awe-inspiring levels. Ghersi uses chanted vocals to humanize the mechanical chaos of "Umbilical," and renders them unearthly on the eerie, frantic "En." Of course, Mutant is much more than a rehash of Sheep. Ghersi also goes deeper into Xens elastic yet abrasive sound world, heightening and fragmenting it into extremes: stripped down to little more than echoing chords, "Gratitude" initially plays like a respite from the albums density, but theres as much tension in its spaces as there is on busier tracks like "Enveloped," a melee of ping-ponging beats and lush tones that is one of the few nods to the more structured approach of Ghersis debut. Instead, Mutant emphasizes the physicality of Arcas music. It often feels like he is applying extreme pressure to these songs and suddenly releasing it, letting the gut-punching percussion and brittle synth tones bend and break at will. The results are often stunning, as on the strafing, sparkling opener "Alive" or the lengthy title track, which is built on a shuddering beat that sounds like it was recorded on fault lines. Mutants fragmentation suggests the breaking of emotional boundaries as well as musical ones. From the kinetic melancholy of "Snakes" to the more personal territory of "Soichiro" (which uses the middle name of longtime collaborator Jesse Kanda as its title) and "Faggot," which unites the albums hardness and softness in a bold reclamation of that slur, this is some of Ghersis most charged-sounding music. Mutant may be some of his most challenging work yet, but as Arcas music becomes more abstract, the viewpoint behind it comes into focus in ways that embrace strangeness, ugliness, and beauty equally. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 10 Title: Entrañas Released: 2016-07-04 Tracks: 1 Duration: 25:02 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Entrañas (25:02) |
 | Album: 10 of 10 Title: Arca Released: 2017-04-07 Tracks: 14 Duration: 48:10 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Piel (04:07) 2 Anoche (03:36) 3 Saunter (02:09) 4 Urchin (04:00) 5 Reverie (03:12) 6 Castration (03:21) 7 Sin rumbo (03:35) 8 Coraje (04:31) 9 Whip (01:20) 10 Desafío (03:53) 11 Fugaces (03:07) 12 Miel (02:56) 13 Child (03:23) 14 Saunter (Reprise) (05:00) |
| Arca : Allmusic album Review : Self-titled albums often mean an artist is making a definitive statement, and Arca is a prime example: Alejandro Ghersis third album as Arca is by far his most revealing, putting his voice, and the beauty of his music, at the forefront in a new and often stunning way. Considering how often electronic producers rely on others to provide vocals for their music, its remarkable that Ghersi not only sings, but sings so well. On "Anoche," his voice is equally powerful and delicate, sweeping across its full range on what sounds like a traditional Venezuelan folk song given a radical electronic arrangement; the juxtaposition of his soaring vocals with crunching beats rivals Ghersis collaborator Björk at her most affecting. On the stripped-down "Sin Rumbo," which first appeared on the mixtape Entranas, he swings from an impressive falsetto to richer tones that recall Anohni. Elsewhere, Ghersi reaches back to his synth pop project Nuuro, filtering it through Arcas experimental lens on highlights such as "Desafio" and "Reverie," both of which sound like excerpts from a futuristic opera. To make room for his voice, Ghersi trades some of his musics mechanical precision and noise for a more open approach. Where many of his previous releases were claustrophobically packed with ideas, Arca explores the drama of wide-open spaces, letting elements of his music flow and crash into each other on tracks like "Castration," where metallic synths duke it out with a haunting piano melody. Later, he returns to the physical quality of his earlier work: "Saunter"s strut lives up to its name, but theres a welling sadness in its wobbling synths, as if the track could stumble at any moment. And lest anyone think Ghersi has gotten too soft, "Whip" pairs a wildly ricocheting rhythm with lumbering drones. More often than not, though, Arcas songs are joined -- if not exactly grounded -- by their emotional impact. The melodic melancholy that bubbled under on Xen swells to the surface on the gently beckoning "Fugaces" and "Coraje," which blankets Ghersis vocals in luminous electronics. The ominous undercurrent of Arcas work is never far away, though. Few things are as terrifying as revealing ones self completely, and Ghersi telegraphs this with "Piel"s fearsome synths and the dark, lumbering finale, "Child," which plays like the summation -- and roots -- of the albums turbulent emotions. As always, Ghersi pushes his boundaries on Arca, and the vulnerability he displays makes it some of his most exciting and moving music yet. | ||