Alejandro Ghersi aka Arca returned last week with his third studio album, ‘Arca’. Arca, who’s known also for his producing work with artists such as Kanye West and Bjork on the albums ‘Yeezus’ and ‘Vulnicura’ respectively, has already released three singles from the new album: ‘Piel’ and ‘Anoche’, the latter of which was supplemented with a music video directed by Jesse Kanda who’s also designed the haunting cover art, and his third single, ‘Reverie’, from the self-titled album, was recently released along with another Jesse Kanda music video that features Arca strutting around on a pair of prosthetic horse hooves, taking inspiration from lyrics in the verse “cuando el amor llega así de esta manera” or “when love comes this way” which takes from the classic ‘Caballo Viejo’ by Simón Diaz, a song which uses the horse gone out to pasture metaphor to represent an older man in love with a younger woman.
‘Desafío’, the music video of which was just released, marks Kanda’s third collaboration with Arca. The four-minute clip sees Arca in bondage gear dragged through the dirt and desolate, carried into the woods by ‘spirits’; perhaps representative of the domination and oppression felt in today’s society. “Here’s my voice and all my guts: feel free to judge it. It’s like a bullfight: you’re watching emotional violence for pleasure. So this is a character who, almost as a mockery of the transaction, goes uncomfortably deep, into self-mutilation. ‘You want gore? Here’s gore’,” Arca stated via press release on his newly released LP. Check down below for ‘Desafío’s video, along with ‘Reverie’s one. ‘Arca’ was released April 7th via XL Recordings.
Sarah Medeiros