Arca’s forthcoming album KiCk i marks a moment of personal and creative transition for the Venezuelan artist Alejandra Ghersi. Delving into her far-reaching and interwoven catalogue to date, it’s apparent her post-club bass and IDM experiments – both as a solo artist and beatmaker to the likes of FKA Twigs, Björk and Kanye West – have not only influenced the electronic music underground but pop music at large.

Nuuro
“Un Paseo”
From Amigos (2008)

Other tracks might more closely resemble the laptop indietronica of Ghersi’s much cited The Postal Service influence on her first Nuuro project growing up in Venezuela – in particular, her 2006 debut album All Clear, released by Mexico’s Soundsister. But it’s the plodding tresillo beat beneath the melancholy gender-neutral lyrics of 2008’s “Un Paseo” that the Barcelona based producer points to as containing an elemental “glitch reggaetón” style that resurfaces throughout her catalogue, up to the lurching rhythm of this year’s “Mequtrefe” on KiCk i. If the more recent track is battered by the organic irregularities of Ghersi’s Autechre and Aphex Twin influence, the texture of this teenage output draws closer to the DIY electro punk that was popular at the time.

Arca
“Thievery”
From Xen (2014)
(Mute)

Released during what she refers to as her “Mute years”, this is another track Ghersi cites as being built around the “boom-ch-boom-chick” – in historian Wayne Marshall’s words – of reggaetón’s dembow drums and snare. “Thievery” was the lead single from her first album as Arca, which followed her watershed &&&&& mixtape, dropped via Hippos In Tanks the year before. Along with a music video by longtime collaborator Jesse Kanda, Ghersi introduced the Xen LP with a CGI rendering of its eponymous genderless, half-human figure inspired by a childhood alter ego. The translucent skin of Xen glows under lights that flicker with the track’s marching beat and subsonic urgency.

Arca
“Love You In Chains” (2011)
(Self released)

A minor viral hit on SoundCloud, when the culture around the online audio distribution platform was at its peak, “Love You In Chains” is one of the strongest examples of the post-club trend for pitching and distorting bass, grime and pop into a groggy dance music, developed in the wake of the occult themed microgenre witch house’s chopped and screwed industrial noise. The approach became a hallmark of the queer music fashion and art scene of the 2010s, centred around labels like Fade To Mind, Tri Angle and UNO, and club nights like GHE20 G0TH1K in New York, where Arca was living at the time.

Arca
“Ass Swung Low”
From Stretch 1 (2012)

Dropped with a swathe of EPs in 2012 – including February’s Baron Libre and August’s Stretch 2 – “Ass Swung Low” is a plodding highlight of April’s Stretch 1. The release upheld Arca’s penchant for lurching, bass heavy revisions of R&B and hiphop palettes, where a deeply resonant and metronomic kick and click cadence underscored what went on to become a signature mix of vocal pitches. This layered approach to the voice created a creepy yet seductive freakishness that not only spread across Arca’s own catalogue but that of other collaborations with the likes of Hood By Air designer and producer Shayne Oliver.

Mykki Blanco
“Join My Militia (Nas Gave Me A Perm)”
From Mykki Blanco & The Mutant Angels (2012)
(UNO)

Another one from fellow Tisch School alum, Charles Damga’s UNO, Mykki Blanco & The Mutant Angels EP is one of a handful of early releases by soon to be influential artists getting their start with the New York label, including Fatima Al Qadiri, SFV Acid and Ian Isiah. Produced by Arca, “Join My Militia (Nas Gave Me A Perm)” launched rapper and performance artist Mykki Blanco’s career with its wonky bass distortion and still novel AutoTune appropriation. The track blew up with the ballroom house and mutant disco-inspired hiphop scene of what back then had been controversially dubbed “queer rap”.

FKA Twigs
"Papi Pacify"
From EP2 (2013)
(Young Turks)

The release of FKA Twigs’ EP2 consolidated Ghersi’s reputation as a beatmaker capable of balancing pop music expectations with experimental production. The record came out just months after her profile had rocketed following a surprising co-production credit – along with Hudson Mohawke, Travis Scott and Daft Punk (among others) – on Kanye West’s Yeezus album. The subtle dynamics of hard and soft sonic textures on “Papi Pacify” followed the more benign melt of FKA Twigs’ updated triphop in lead single “How’s That”, and the familiar Arca-esque vocal pitching of “Water Me”.

Kelela
“Hallucinogen”
From Hallucinogen (2015)
(Warp)

"Hallucinogen" is one of two Arca produced tracks on Kelela's 2015 EP of the same name. It was recorded during the same sessions for the 2013 mixtape as lead single “A Message”, but while tracks by a slew of iconic Fade To Mind and Night Slugs producers made it to Cut 4 Me, Kelela chose to hold on to the Arca productions. Her muttered nonsense lyrics are submerged in delay, and the track was so spontaneous that “Hallucinogen” includes a diluted interjection from Arca during recording midway through.

Arca
“Baby Doll (feat Mica Levi)”
From Entrañas (2016)
(Self released)

A collaboration with avant pop producer and composer Mica Levi (aka Micachu) is perhaps one of the more unexpected partnerships in Arca’s career. They share similarities, however, not only in their early prodigious achievement as producers and musicians but also because of their fascination with deconstructing remix and hiphop at the bass and grime end of the electronic music spectrum. “Baby Doll” is one of two tracks featuring Levi on Arca’s third mixtape Entrañas. It pairs Ghersi’s sample heavy dissonance and gender exploration with Levi’s off-tune MIDI strings resembling the freakish melancholy of 2013’s “Love”, from their groundbreaking soundtrack to John Glazer’s film Under the Skin.

Arca
“Reverie”
From Arca (2017)
(XL Recordings)

While 2015’s third LP Mutant perfected Arca’s organic glitch and stretch aesthetic – effectively closing a chapter on her wordless ambient industrial direction – her self-titled fourth album marked a transformation. The album imbued a new humanity in her IDM-influenced sound design with the bilingual artist adding her voice to the mix, at the suggestion of longtime mentor and collaborator Björk. Following the raw and exposed Spanish language lead singles of “Piel” and “Anoche”, “Reverie” paired its folk song lyrics of ageing and redundancy – lifted from the Venezuelan folk song "Caballo Viejo" – with a mournful video by Jesse Kanda. It’s here that Arca introduced her centaur-like mechanical hooves that went on to grace the cover of this year’s KiCk i.

Björk
“Arisen My Senses”
From Utopia (2017)
(One Little Indian)

As if to reinforce the shared influence they’ve had on each other as collaborators and friends since Björk heard &&&&& in 2013, the Icelandic artist’s Utopia followed 2015’s critically acclaimed break-up album Vulnicura with Arca as primary co-producer. “Arisen My Senses” was the third single, written and produced with Ghersi and released with a video directed by Kanda the following year. Its resonant chimes and bells punctuate atmospheric flourishes and syncopated beats that are recognisably Arca’s, while her appearance in the accompanying video bafflingly generated ire among Björk’s existing fan base. Together with Arca’s self-titled album released the same year, the two records became a symbol of mutual rebirth for the both of them.

Read Arca's cover feature by Steph Kretowicz in The Wire 436. Wire subscribers can access the full article via the digital archive.