ARCA ANNOUNCESKICK ii OUT DECEMBER 3 ON XL RECORDINGS

ByE NEWSOctober 9, 20212 Mins read96

Arca, the Venezuelan artist, singer, DJ, performer, model, painter, pop diva and experimental music composer, returns to announce the details of her highly-anticipated album KICK ii; the follow-up to her 2020 GRAMMY-award nominated album KiCk i, which last week received a Latin GRAMMY Award® nomination for “Best Alternative Music Album.” Last week Arca re-emerged to release a long-teased, rapid-fire rap track titled “Incendio.” Adding fuel to the fire, today she debuts KICK ii’s first single “Born Yesterday” featuring Sia.

Due out December 3rd on XL Recordings, KICK ii is the second stage in the ongoing KiCk series. The next installment in the anthology, conceived to represent the multiple self-states that exist within Arca, KICK ii is 12-new tracks of all original Arca productions, with featured moments of production and songwriting from Cardopusher, Boys Noize, Mica Levi, Jenius Level, Wondagurl, Cubeatz and Sia. KICK ii is available for pre-order here: https://arca.ffm.to/kickii

For the past ten years we’ve watched Alejandra Ghersi Rodriguez, better known as Arca, carve a blazing path through the zeitgeist–a shapeshifting celestial body, streaking across the cultural firmament. Every time we laid eyes on her she’d taken on some new form. Every time it seemed like we had a grip on her she slipped right past our expectations, protean and elusive.

That liquid nature has allowed Arca’s talents to thrive in unexpected places. Beyond creating a dense and varied body of of her own musical work, she’s produced for Lady Gaga, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Björk, Kanye, Frank Ocean and FKA twigs; composed for the Museum of Modern Art, Dior’s 2022 Cruise show, HBO’s Euphoria, Acne’s Women’s SS ‘22 show and a retro gaming console; she’s performed at a Burberry runway show for Riccardo Tisci and her own 4-night residency at The Shed. She’s been nominated for a GLAAD Media Award and is the first non-binary artist to be nominated for a GRAMMY. She’s painted her own album art, modeled for Bottega Venetta, Calvin Klein, Loewe, co-designed next-generation musical instruments and embraced AI. She’s built an online community on Discord for the horde of self-proclaimed “mutants” who follow her and have even started an acclaimed “Mutant Mixtape” compilation series.

Seemingly disparate things that when viewed as a whole reveal a single, ever-growing holistic work. But these are only snapshots, artifacts of the ceaseless movement from one state to the next. Arca’s true artistic medium is transformation itself. It exists in the quantum-like state of infinite potential, further out towards the edge of possibility than most people dare to go. It’s why places like Wired included her in their 2020 list of innovators, and publications like Time Magazine, Guardian, DAZED, Billboard, Pitchfork, them., Stereogum, Los Angeles Times have all regarded her as one of the 21st century’s most innovative artists. Doña Arca, a nonbinary Latinx trans woman, who is redefining the role of a popstar for a new generation; She has seen the future, and now she’s inviting us to create it with her.