FETCHING in basque and flailing suspenders, floating on twelve inch platformed thigh high metal-buckled boots, Arca runs down the catwalk and I’m sure says ‘Wassup Manchester!’ As first appearances go, it is impressive and the crowd are rather taken aback. He spins round and as he walks to the stage, a little deflated, someone quietly says ‘You look amazing’. ‘Oh thank you’ he returns, coquettishly. He then spins, starts to speak, stops, says ‘I forgot to cue the music.’
Arca is, in some ways, indescribable
It’s a disarming beginning. And sets the tone in some ways for what follows. My favourite review of his music is ‘hip hop derailed by mischievous digital tomfoolery, avant-garde time signatures and warped pitches’, and we had all of that on show. At maximum volume.
Arca is Alejandro Ghersi, now living in Dalston via Venezuela and New York. He has produced/collaborated with Kanye West, FKA twigs and most recently Björk. His co-creator on stage tonight, in charge of the gendermelting visuals, is Jesse Kanda. He sits behind a single laptop quietly. The visuals are an integral part of the performance, and Arca is soon dancing with his alter ego, Xen, up on the screen, shadowing the swaying figure. And then the figure starts producing pustules and red blobs glow and burst from the figure’s back. Arca’s intention with Xen is to create a figure that everyone is simultaneously attracted and repulsed by and in the title track of his album Xen we are treated to a freaky stripper in extraordinary poses. You can see the video online, but the vast bulldozing chords and bass growls that physically assault you have to be experienced live, as the vertiginous drops impact around you. My trousers were trembling, plaster specks fell from the ceiling (they might want to have the joists checked), and at one point the floor lifted beneath me.
XenBut it is not just noise for noise’s sake. He is a classically trained pianist, and some tracks have elegance and air, and humour - the piano-playing baby is as sweet as it sounds, and his wave on screen was charming. Arca is, in some ways, indescribable. These vast, leaping, switching, scratching, booming shards of music are all produced by him standing at his computers, although it carried on when he got changed into pale pink patent boots and buttock-revealing thong. His ‘songs’ are between 90 seconds and 9 minutes long, his rapping is vicious, he is confrontational and accommodating. Being a MIF audience, we were probably twenty years older on average than what he’d be used to, although dancing was largely impossible given the shifts in beat and abrupt endings, choral explosions and whorls of crashing glass.
It was a thrilling, challenging, thumping night – the sort of event that MIF talks about wanting to host. Hopefully he’ll be with Björk tonight (he was).
Arca & Jess Kanda took place at the Hallé St Peter's on Saturday 4 July.
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(Photo credit: Jamie Alun Price)
