Arca Reverie

Taken from the new album Arca, out April 7 on XL Recordings. Conceived by Jesse Kanda and Alejandro Ghersi Reverie was originally the working title for what would become Arca. Its video, directed by longtime visual collaborator Jesse Kanda, was filmed in one take. In it, Arca stands on mechanical, hooflike legs, depicting a wounded matador (as a press release puts it) who bleeds over flower petals. Bullfighting is a piercing metaphor: you are fighting a bull, and at the same (time) yourself, Arca says in a statement. You are not the victim or the oppressor, you are both animality and bestiality are conflated. Evoking sex invokes our animality. And evoking our animality, in turn, invokes spirituality.