Arca
's
Alejandra Ghersi
remained as prolific as she was before projects like her highly acclaimed debut album
Xen
and her production work on
Bjoerk
Vulnicura
raised her profile. Just a few months after
's release,
Ghersi
issued
Sheep
, a mixtape of music she composed for a Hood by Air fashion show. As an artist with a distinctive look and sound,
's connection to the fashion world made sense, but Sheep wasn't standard runway fare: with tracks that sampled the bleating of sheep and choral music (as well as the work of
,
Robert Wyatt
, and
Lana Del Ray
), it teetered between stylish and subversive, disturbing and poignant.
expands on this complicated headspace on
Mutant
, a set of tracks that feels like a hard-won celebration of individuality. A few of
's pivotal moments reappear here, providing some of the album's touchstones. "Else" manages to be both delicate and heavy, while "Hymn"'s intensity reaches fittingly awe-inspiring levels.
uses chanted vocals to humanize the mechanical chaos of "Umbilical," and renders them unearthly on the eerie, frantic "En." Of course,
is much more than a rehash of
.
also goes deeper into
's elastic yet abrasive sound world, heightening and fragmenting it into extremes: stripped down to little more than echoing chords, "Gratitude" initially plays like a respite from the album's density, but there's as much tension in its spaces as there is on busier tracks like "Enveloped," a melee of ping-ponging beats and lush tones that is one of the few nods to the more structured approach of
's debut. Instead,
emphasizes the physicality of
's music. It often feels like she is applying extreme pressure to these songs and suddenly releasing it, letting the gut-punching percussion and brittle synth tones bend and break at will. The results are frequently stunning, as on the strafing, sparkling opener "Alive" or the lengthy title track, which is built on a shuddering beat that sounds like it was recorded on fault lines.
's fragmentation suggests the breaking of emotional boundaries as well as musical ones. From the kinetic melancholy of "Snakes" to the more personal territory of "Soichiro" (which uses the middle name of longtime collaborator
Jesse Kanda
as its title) and "Faggot," which unites the album's hardness and softness in a bold reclamation of that slur, this is some of
's most charged-sounding music.
may be some of her most challenging work yet, but as
's music becomes more abstract, the viewpoint behind it comes into focus in ways that embrace strangeness, ugliness, and beauty equally. ~ Heather Phares