Arca’s ‘Thievery’ track is one that gets under your skin. For the video for the song from his Xen album out October 31st here, there is loads of skin on display, as a naked digitised dancer writhes convincingly enough to reality to fool your brain into thinking you’re watching something real and explicit. There are moments of complete unreality embedded in the video too.
Arca is the Venezuelan producer Alejandro Ghersi and the video is by Jesse Kanda (see her FKA Twigs video, a close cornerstone in style to this). There’s a story with him in The Fader.
In explanation of the video:
While Xen is an album of mercurial forms, fluxing unpredictably from smooth to spiked to sweet, Xen is also a girl whose skin ripples and twists as she dances. Arca is Alejandro Ghersi, who, in turn, is also Xen: a meta-modern self-projection, embodying a side of Arca that had previously been hidden by a producer who’s so far remained one of the most intriguing enigmas in recent electronic music.
ARCA TOUR DATES
27th November ICA, London
28th November Rotonde, Brussels
1st December Point Ephemere, Paris
4th December OT301, Amsterdam
5th December Kantine/Berghain, Berlin
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
