ARCA (CD)

On Arca’s amazing 3rd, eponymous album - their debut for XL - the Venezuelan/American artist reveals their vocals, guts and more (check the press shots; which, to be fair, aren’t a patch on E+E’s old Myspace pic) in a riveting suite of tortuous torch songs riddled with violent electronic tones and heart-wrenching levels of emotive pathos.

Ranging from quivering, castrati-style to richer, processed lows, it turns out to be the perfect foil for his plasmic electronic scales, serving to match and emphasise the operatic/cabaret dramaturgy of his arrangements with an effect at times as surreal as Julee Cruise’s performances in Twin Peaks, or one of Coil’s studio sprites come to life, or even like some Kaspar Hauser-esque R&B diva who just emerged from another dimension.

Tracklist:

1. Piel
2. Anoche
3. Saunter
4. Urchin
5. Reverie
6. Castration
7. Sin Rumbo
8. Coraje
9. Whip
10. Desafio
11. Fugaces
12. Miel
13. Child