Today Arca has officially announced the details of her new album KiCk i, which is set for release digitally June 26th on XL Recordings/Rhythmethod (physical (vinyl/CD) to follow on July 17th). Produced and recorded by Arca, KiCk i defines a new era of multiplex harmony for the Venezuelan artist, singer, DJ, performer and experimental music composer. With appearances from Björk, Rosalía, Shygirl and SOPHIE, this is the first time Arca has invited collaborators into her world, previously having lent her sound to some of the decades most avant-pop artists. With the release of “Nonbinary” kicking off the new era, today Arca shares the first single from KiCk i called “Time”.
“Time” originally premiered in September 2019 at Arca’s Mutant;Faith, a four-part experimental performance cycle at the new NYC performing arts space The Shed. The performance “stood to prove why Arca’s work is beyond innovative, and why her vision for the future of pop is so thrilling,” declared them., with Pitchfork revering Arca’s ability to “continue to create a singular world.” Captured on the fourth-day of Mutant;Faith performance cycle, the video for “Time” was conceptualized by Arca, Carlos Sáez and MANSON, who directed the video in front of a live audience at The Shed and on the streets of NYC.
KiCk i is a celebration not only of the joy Arca’s been able to find in her life, but the sometimes arduous journey it took for her to find it. Her struggles to reconcile her Venezuelan heritage and her trans-Latinx identity emerge as reggaetón and pop en Español. But KiCk i isn’t just a pop record, or an experimental record, or even simply a mix between the two, but rather all of them at once- and so much more. Depending on where you drop the needle you’ll find bubblegum, harsh noise, electronic psychedelia, balladry, bangers, laughter, tears, passion, and expressions of faith – sounds and ideas that don’t simply blend together, but coexist simultaneously in quantum superposition made possible inside the sonic worlds Arca builds in her music.
photo credit: Hart Leshkina
ARCA: “TIME”
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“I don’t want to be tied to one genre,” Arca explains. “I don’t want to be labelled as one thing.” Where she is now, being nonbinary doesn’t end with her gender identity. It’s become a mindset where no one thing has to be just one thing, where multiple meanings, multiple realities can coexist in superposed balance. In this space between states, where one thing is the other, Arca has discovered a vast field of untapped creative power. KiCk i is the sound of her plugging in.
Arca:
For the past eight years Arca has carved a blazing path through the zeitgeist. Every time we laid eyes on her she’d taken on some new form – noise sculptor, diva, philosopher, fashion plate, party girl, DJ, performance artist, painter. It’s her nonbinary mindset of endless possibilities that have resulted in an extraordinary range of work, outside of her own music which includes three albums (Xen, Mutant, Arca) and several mixtapes (Stretch 1, Stretch 2, &&&&&, Entrañas), she has produced for Björk, Kayne West, FKA twigs, composed music for MoMA and Analogue’s Mega SG, hosted Frank Ocean’s PREP+ party, performed with the Labèque sisters at Riccardo Tisci’s Burberry Autumn/Winter 2020 runway show. She’s a painter who’s created her own album art, a model who’s signed to Elite, a tech innovator who’s co-designed some of her own unique instruments. It’s these seemingly disparate things that in retrospect add up to one astounding, ever-growing holistic work. But it’s the transformation itself, more than any one particular element, which has been her real work to date. With an example of this displayed last September over the course of four days at her multifaceted performance piece at New York City’s The Shed titled Mutant;Faith, inspiring founding artistic director Alex Poots to call her “a glimpse of a future I hope for.”
And while it’s always been clear–at least to those who’ve been paying attention –that this metamorphosis was building to something big and new. Now the final veil has dropped, the chrysalis bust wide open. A new queen is born, mutant and splendorous. A Latinx trans woman, who is redefining the role of the diva for a new generation.
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