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Arca & Björk

By Sergio Pulido 27.05.18

I do not know the circumstances in which Arca and Björk met, how the Icelandic woman knew about the existence of a 28 year old Venezuelan guy who ended up producing her last two albums: Vulnicura of 2015 and Utopia of 2017. I totally ignore how it would have been the moment when she listened to his work and decided to contact him, although I neither know how she ended up working for Kanye West on four tracks of Yeezus (2013) or how she made some tracks to the unclassifiable FKA Twigs ...

The thing is that these two creative souls, Alejandro Ghersi (Arca) and Björk have united their 'artistic paths' and her work is influenced by him and he is very influenced by her, especially in his last album, called precisely Arca and edited last year, where he leaves aside the environmental landscapes plagued by synthesizers and oppressive environments, to make oppressive songs full of synthesizers, with sad and sexual lyrics, in Spanish, such as:

“...Anoche yo soñé
Nuestra muerte simultánea
Anoche yo lloré
De felicidad, qué extraño me sentí...”

(Anoche).

O:

“Quítame la piel de ayer
Una sombra de destellos en tu piel
Y de una vez de instancia
Tal vez
Sin ti, no sé nada...”

(Piel).

And all this, accompanied by videos with S&M aesthetics where our beloved protagonist is beaten or humiliated, or he dance with leather suspenders, becoming something like the 'queer saint of alternative electronics', redeemed through punishment, or the champion in a new way to express sexuality in a pop frame, a 21st century queen.

  • Arca Primavera Sound 2018

    Arca, ph: Daniel Shea

    Concerning Björk, well, we all know her for a while now, we know that we can expect anything from her except for the expected, and her latest work also gets involved with sex. Utopia is her 'Tinder album' (in words of Björk), where she returns to try to be sexually related with humanity after her divorce that inspired her previous work Vulnicura. Furthermore, everything is also dressed with images of Jesse Kanda –who of course is also the visual director of Arca–, who turned her into a kind of human-vegetal sexual being, which is metamorphosed with flowers and carries on the waist a belt with an erect dildo. The rarest of the rare, in communion with the queerest of the queer. A wonderful couple.

  • Bjork Primavera Sound 2018

    Björk, ph: Santiago Felipe

  • Bjork Primavera Sound 2018

    Björk, ph: Santiago Felipe


    Björk will perform on Thursday, May 31st and Arca on Friday, June 1st at Primavera Sound 2018. I would not be surprised if both visit each other in their respective shows.