Today’s Track: Arca – “Time”

With this Venezuelan songstress, ‘Time’ is of the essence – It’s time for your new post!

Good morning to you, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and, as usual, I’m writing about your daily track on the blog because it’s my day-to-day pleasure to do so! It’s a light period for new releases due to the effects of COVID-19, but one alternative artist who is pushing ahead with the release of her new album, despite the marketing flux, is Arca. Ever one to push boundaries, Arca is set to release her fourth LP record, “Kick I”, on June 26th via XL Recordings. That is day-and-date with Khruangbin’s “Mortdechai”. I’ve come to discover Arca from her many collaborations with Icelandic icon Björk, gaining production credits on 2015’s “Vulnicura” and 2017’s “Utopia”. Arca has also contributed to producing work from Kanye West, Frank Ocean and FKA Twigs. Her new album was recorded between Barcelona and London. It features collaborations with Björk, Rosalía and Shygirl. Let’s have a listen to Arca’s latest single “Time” below.

An artist who came out as Non-Binary in 2018 and wants to be addressed by the pronouns “She” and “It”, Arca documents the transformative chapter of her life in the synth-glazed and disco-inflicted strobe beats on “Time”. It’s hard to decipher the vocals, due to the besmirched production style of the heavy synth work and pulsating drum beats, enveloped in keyboard riffs that throb to the intoxicating sounds of Arca’s dark romantic desire, but she sings: “I know you want it/Time to let it out, it’s time”, which she exfoliates above very methodically layered Falsetto vocal effects and ambient washes of scintillating, 00’s-like Disco throwback beats. In the second half, she adds: “It’s all yours/You know it is/Baby, Take this time tonight for yourself to unwind”, stuttering her vocals over lengthy reverb effects and smearing the spacious vocal delivery with glitched electronic beats that twist and turn to an 80’s synth-pop aesthetic. It sounds highly experimental, but it doesn’t seem massively far off from the Eurythmics-like aesthetic that CHVRCHES used to briefly tap into during the early stages of their career. Arca just dives deeper into the identifiable darkness in the realms of progressive electro-pop and visionary synth beats. She creates a repeated synth pattern to good effect, which creates a very futuristic aesthetic which harkens into Sci-Fi territory. I think this track could have done with being a little longer to develop this vision in further detail, but it sounds creative and imaginatively edited. It is not for the Masses at all – but it’s quite intriguing and she has left me wanting more.

Thank you for reading this post! Hopefully all of this rubbish will be over soon, but in the meantime, I ask that you stay safe inside, don’t do anything silly and you keep on washing those hands! I’ll catch up with you tomorrow with an in-depth review of the brand new single from a British vocalist and guitarist who used to be the frontman of a well-known English Alternative Rock Group who produced 11 albums that hit the Top 40 of the UK Albums Chart between 1990 and 2010. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

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