Seven XXXXX moments that still have us in a chokehold

Arca dropped her ninth album

The mother, the humanoid diva, the siren, the cyborg Arca dropped her ninth album last week, and XXXXX still holds an inexplicable grip over our ears and bodies. As we’ve re-absorbed the album several times, sweetly short-circuiting our brains with her mesmerising yet at times characteristically challenging experimentalia, some moments made our souls hover over our bodies a bit higher than the rest. 

Starting off strong, the opening track No end set a perfect alien-esque atmosphere to the project. Distorted hisses sound as if coming from Arca’s own spaceship, a warning sign of a hostile landing on earth and a disruption of electronic music as we know it. 

Next up, Willow imbues us with its metallic coldness, as bells echo through an industrial sonic void. Our head is already spinning by the time the thumping beat kicks in, making us feel like we’re sinking deeper and deeper into murky, oil-spilled Arca waters.

Only (almost) third-way through, the state of delirium officially kicks in with Syncope. A fever dream more than a track, Syncope is dizzying and naughty, evoking a sense of overstimulation and chaos. It sounds like the craze of a broken slot machine and a soundtrack to a horror clown film, somehow jolly yet terrifying. 

Cinch offers a little respite and a breather. We love to hear Arca whisper down our necks.

The atmosphere broods again on Finisher, haunted by neo-classical contortions and broken beat patterns. Finisher might be somewhat more digestible than most of the other tracks, yet it still feels like the beat was made using an Ouija board.

Everything feels like an IDM purist track (if there even is such a thing with IDM). The synths and stuttering and buzzing akin to an enlarged, robotic fly circling our ears, but in a very pleasant sense. By the third minute, the safe and steady repetitiveness is dissolving, sending us further into our own thoughts.

Finally, Sueño. Perhaps the most pop-adjacent track on the album, it feels like a gentle exorcism. A transcendence, a shapeshifting into a new post-human entity, making us wonder what form she will emerge in next.