Written Before Listen
God….at the end of the year, Electronic producer Arca decided to drop 4 albums in continuation of her Kick series, which means I have to review 5 albums. Here is the fourth one. Arca is a producer I know little about. I know she did work with people like Kanye and Bjork and she is a pioneer in the Latin Electronic scene. With that out of the way, this is low-key my first time listening to Arca in-depth, so without further ado, let’s get into this.
Production
A lot of the production is marinated and I will compliment this album on that. There is a lot of attention to detail on each song, but it’s only occasionally when the detail is attention-grabbing. The song “Queer” is the main track that comes to mind. It’s easily the most standout track on this album as it’s a Witch House banger with a cloudy aura surrounding it. Other than that, I think the production is just a mellow mood and nothing more.
Features
Out of the 11 songs, 4 of them have features. On “Esuna”, we have Oliver Coates who turns out to be an experimental producer and that song turns out to be one of the better tracks. On “Queer”, PLANNINGTOROCK appears as the strongest feature on the album. On “Witch”, No Bra delivers a deadpan vocal performance that has its pros and cons. I would say that it fits the song but the song itself is so drawn out that No Bra gets drawn out too. The last feature is Shirley Manson on the song “Alien Inside” and to be honest, I didn’t recognize her. She went right past the song. Overall, the features are the definition of hit or miss.
Genre-Bending
Arca might just be one of the most eclectic producers on the planet. She creates some of the most singular sounds on this album because this album is really like nothing else I’ve heard. What I will say is that she doesn’t step out of that one sound throughout the album. There are a couple of exceptions though. “Queer” is a wavy and bouncy electronic track with drum machine-like drums and atmospheric synthesizers. “Xenomorphgirl” is kind of like the sound setter for the album as it has distortion but it only leads to more soundscape material. Other than that, this is just some abstract Ambient Pop.
Comparison to The Previous 3 Kicks
Well, another thing I can give this album is that it’s easily the most separated between the 4. Every KiCK album has been noisy, bouncy, and abrasive. This one is just atmospheric and not in the way that it’s soothing, it’s atmospheric in the way that it feels like a dystopian world. A lot is going on but it doesn’t feel like there’s anything.
Predictability
Well, I feel like I’ll be beating a dead horse with this but, this album is pretty repetitive, but it’s not redundant. The sound that Arca continues with is pretty intriguing, it’s just predictable. Also, maybe it’s that Arca withdraws from her usual style but on Kick iiii, she doesn’t give the best overall sound of her music.
Verdict
This wasn’t bad or anything, but I won’t revisit it, It’s also the worst KiCk by far, It’s just really middle of the road for an album. I would also like to note that if this album was released on its own, it would be a worse score, but in the context of the series, it works in its own way. I think the Ambient direction is a necessity for this album in one way or another.
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