Arca- Mutant (2015)
Arca- Mutant (2015)
“Where words fail,
music speaks.”
Hans Christian
Andersen
By: Ghost Writer
Electronica
is getting better and better every day, some of today’s shiny pop sounds of the
mainstream, are generated in the underground secret basements in which sound
alchemists are working in secret techniques to bring to life sounds from
unknown sources, so it’s always great to have the chance to appreciate those
sounds in the moment they are being created rather than after years of process
and filtration (and domestication perhaps).
Keeping impressive
momentum from last year's incredible Xen, and even developing stronger sound
skills, put on display in wonderful records by FKA twigs and Bjork, Venezuelan
producer Alejandro Ghersi aka Arca, returns as an essential sound creator of
our times, as a courageous music visionary that falls somewhere between the
abstract collages of the admired Aphex Twin and the noisy ultra-modern
experiments of one of my favorite musicians-producers, Oneothrix Point Never
aka Daniel Lopatin, whose journey from noise creator to advanced sounds
producer is quite inspirational.
There is
also something accessible and menacing in the music sophistication of Ghersi,
he creates dark and surreal soundscapes that touches in a tangential way the
dark worlds of sound created by none other than Mr. Trent Renzor, Ghersi is a man
full of creative resources and fearless when it comes to exploring to its full
his sound obsessions, experimenting with all kind of sound during Mutant, going
from really harsh noise to some brutally treated folk sounds from his native
Venezuela.
Arca's Mutant can be understood when put side to side to Venezuela current political and social turbulent situation, a once powerful nation within the region, now violently falling apart, the land of drama and soap operas fighting will all its might to get back to his well-deserved greatness, and Ghersi captures here all the sensuality and power of the country and put it inside a device that disintegrates it and makes it explode in front of our faces, or ears.
Mutant starts with the intense Alive, where Arca's ability with highly percussive synths, eerie atmospheres and controlled noise explosions are presented at dizzying speeds and with an incredible organic approach to it, the man is brutal in his attack and not shy to show a really abstract side to his production, Arca's production reminds me of the work of London's Burial, as it sticks to no human logic and follows and amazing almost surreal path, before you know it, you are on the disjointed Mutant and Ghersi gets really heavy here, there is nothing melodically at moments and the whole thing sounds like a defiant attempt to discourage the current listeners, but Ghersi give us some clues, like small light nearly illuminating a very dark path, with very small, nearly microscopic touches of what can be called music.
But again, on Vanity we are faced with more organic nearly chameleonic structures and a somewhat kind of cold melodically oriented infatuation by Ghersi, Ghersi´s world keeps expanding here, he sounds even more ambitious here and breaks the path of previous tracks, even introducing dance like beats in the middle of his own “mutant” trap arrangements, then he blows us all away on the powerful and merciless Sinner, in which he again manages to make the almost impossible by merging a mechanic almost pugilistic attack with subtle melody.
Arca's Mutant can be understood when put side to side to Venezuela current political and social turbulent situation, a once powerful nation within the region, now violently falling apart, the land of drama and soap operas fighting will all its might to get back to his well-deserved greatness, and Ghersi captures here all the sensuality and power of the country and put it inside a device that disintegrates it and makes it explode in front of our faces, or ears.
Mutant starts with the intense Alive, where Arca's ability with highly percussive synths, eerie atmospheres and controlled noise explosions are presented at dizzying speeds and with an incredible organic approach to it, the man is brutal in his attack and not shy to show a really abstract side to his production, Arca's production reminds me of the work of London's Burial, as it sticks to no human logic and follows and amazing almost surreal path, before you know it, you are on the disjointed Mutant and Ghersi gets really heavy here, there is nothing melodically at moments and the whole thing sounds like a defiant attempt to discourage the current listeners, but Ghersi give us some clues, like small light nearly illuminating a very dark path, with very small, nearly microscopic touches of what can be called music.
But again, on Vanity we are faced with more organic nearly chameleonic structures and a somewhat kind of cold melodically oriented infatuation by Ghersi, Ghersi´s world keeps expanding here, he sounds even more ambitious here and breaks the path of previous tracks, even introducing dance like beats in the middle of his own “mutant” trap arrangements, then he blows us all away on the powerful and merciless Sinner, in which he again manages to make the almost impossible by merging a mechanic almost pugilistic attack with subtle melody.
Ghersi
works magic again on the indescribable Anger, fusing voice, brutal ultra-deep
beats and chopped and screwed Latin beats all this while putting on display
generous shots of acid synth, just as in the wild and cracked synth heavy Sever
or the isolationist techniques applied on Umbilical, which somehow manages to
describe aptly the sounds in this Mutant.
Hymn might
not be anthemic, but it describes the asphyxiating tension surrounding his
native country, a situation too hard to take, as one of the voices in this
record says, Mutant might be a little too much, too soon, as Ghersi seems
obsessed with putting every single sound on his outstanding creative mind,
giving us a big congestion while listening to this overall ambitious creation.
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