Arca - KiCk i Review
With a wide range of experimental influences, Arca makes her music difficult to classify
KiCk i, the first of four proposed upcoming albums from Arca, sees her exploring her non-binary identity through an experimental, electronic pop soundscape. There is a wide array of influences on this record from Latin drumbeats that reflect her Venezuelan background, to synthpop, to production most alike what you’d find on a JPEGMAFIA record. Arca also manages to get some impressive features on this album such as Björk and Rosalía: both included rather subtly due to the dominating nature of the production. Overall, Arca creates a very unique and exciting sound, but sometimes by leaning too hard on the side of experimentation fails to give the listener enough melody to connect with. It’s difficult to recall any quotable lyrics, nor do I find myself playing the melodies over in my head.
“Non-binary”, the opening track, sees Arca celebrating her trans identity and success with lyrics confronting someone who questions their legitimacy. This fast-paced, two-minute track introduces the sonic and lyrical themes perfectly, looking at how hard she has worked to be in the position she is in, both professionally and in terms of being confident with who she is, over a deconstructed club instrumental.
“Time” follows this, leaning more on the synthpop influence and focusing more on an atmospheric sound which will become a recurring sonic theme throughout the album. The production on this song sounds great, with the dreamy vocals and instrumentals sounding rich and clean. The only issue with this song for me is that it doesn’t seem fully realised: despite being a fairly slow-paced song, it still clocks in under the 3-minute mark. Possibly Arca could have been a bit more adventurous with the instrumental bridge towards the end, as this was really pretty but felt as if it was cut short.
The next song which caught my attention was “Riquiqui”, a song which features both Spanish and English. As a languages student, I love hearing more than one language on one song, so this left a good impression on me. The instrumentals on this song seem reminiscent of something that could be found on JPEGMAFIA’s “Veteran”. Arca says the focus of the lyrics is much to do with the sound of the words but also on “autochthonous expressions”, such as the title “Riquiqui” itself: a Latin-American expression meaning “yummy” but one which Google Translate doesn’t have a translation for. Both sonically and lyrically, I think this makes for a very interesting listen.
“Calor” comes next, another song focusing more on atmosphere. Vocally, it really contrasts with “Riquiqui”, which featured a low baritone from Arca; in “Calor” we hear vocals much closer to the top of Arca’s range. However, later in the song, she returns to the lower reaches of her range, overall making for a very impressive vocal performance which culminates in a truly beautiful song. After this, we are faced with “Afterwards”, featuring Björk, which seems to go for a similar atmosphere to “Calor” but for me is much less successful. I am also really not a fan of the second verse echo effect put on Arca’s vocals.
Of the songs which could be classed as “bangers” on this LP, “KLK”, featuring Rosalía, is definitely my favourite. The reggaeton drumbeat is so danceable and infectious and Rosalía and Arca have great vocal chemistry. It sounds like they had a lot of fun making this track. Leaning into a recurring theme, the lyrics (in Spanish) again focus on how far they both have come and how both have been able to pursue their dreams.
Unfortunately, this is followed by my least favourite song on the album, “Rip the Slit”. Repetitive vocals always rub me the wrong way and this track features them in abundance – the phrase “I rip the slit” repeated around twenty times. I also find the high-pitched, robotic sound of the vocals very annoying. Not a song I will be returning to.
“Machote”, the album’s penultimate song, is another atmospheric ballad. The lyrics, as the title suggests, find Arca yearning after a “Machote”, meaning someone with the characteristics of a strong, stereotypical man (but, as to be expected with the gender themes of this album, an individual who not necessarily have to be a man). Arca has said that the song pays close homage to “Quiero una Chica”, the 2003 song by Latin Dreams which she loved so much as a 14-year-old, particularly lyrically. While one of the more accessible songs here, it still doesn’t sound at all out of place on the album. The closer, “No Queda Nada”, again is an atmospheric ballad, but it didn’t leave much of an impression on me – it's pretty but it's forgettable.
With a wide range of experimental influences, Arca makes her music difficult to classify. If she were on the PC Music label, PC music would be the easiest descriptor for a lot of the songs, with the experimental, electronic production, androgynous and somewhat robotic vocals, and Arca’s LGBTQ+ identity. While this experimentation is undoubtedly one of the attractions of Arca’s music, I can’t help feeling that at some points she was a little lost in this experimentation, particularly on “Watch” and “La Chiqui”. Couple this with the fact that this really is not my favoured kind of music and this became at points quite a challenging listen for me. Overall, I feel that Arca is at her best with her ballad-style songs, as these play to the strengths of her very impressive vocal range and power. While well executed, “KiCk i" is probably not an album I will find myself regularly revisiting despite its merits.
