Pitchfork’s Philip Sherburne sits down withexperimental electronic maestro Arca to talk ‘Mutant’ and his ever-morphing, binary-breaking sounds.
“Not two minutes into our conversation, Alejandro Ghersi is already talking about labyrinths. There’s one in Barcelona he says I must visit, where a topiary maze is pocked with ruined-looking neoclassical sculptures. “It’s overgrown and mossy and green,” he says. “A really special place.”
“His enthusiasm for such a locale is fitting. The music he records as Arca often feels both fungal, like a post-apocalyptic future as seen from a spore’s point of view, and labyrinthine. It’s this evocative and spontaneous quality that has attracted collaborators like Kanye West, Björk, and FKA twigs, and some of his most exciting work so far has taken the form of long, undulating solo compositions full of sidewinding synthesizer melodies and beats that fold in upon themselves.”
Arca’s highly-anticipated follow-up to ‘Mutant’ will be released later this year. In the mean time, tide yourself over withrecent mixtape, ‘Entrañas’, and catch him alongside visual artist and frequent collaborator Jesse Kanda at Rewire 2017 on Friday, 31 March.