Arca Makes Her Own Mythical Complex With 'Electra Rex'
Music

Arca Makes Her Own Mythical Complex With 'Electra Rex'

What's better than one new Arca album to look forward to? Two new Arca albums, of course. Less than a month after announcing the follow-up to last year's Grammy nominated KiCK i, Arca has returned to preview a third installment in the artist's ongoing KiCK series, set to arrive alongside KicK ii on December 3.

Standing in sharp contrast to the more hypnotic, synth-driven reggaetón amble of "Prada" and "Rakata," Arca's latest single, "Electra Rex," opens up yet another avenue in her ever growing collection of self-states. On it, she offers a more abrasive palette with metallic drums that grow increasingly more chaotic until it culminates in an explosive eruption of twisted metal and warped bass.

"For me, KicK iii is the most incendiary entry in the kick universe," Arca explains. "The album is a portal directly into the more manic, violently euphoric and aggressively psychedelic sound palettes in the series."

Diving into the mythical and psychological origins behind the single's namesake, Arca explains that "Electra Rex is a new archetype I propose in reference to commonly understood ideas of Freud regarding the oedipal complex — Oedipus Rex kills the father and unknowingly making love to the mother. Electra complex posits the binary opposite: killing the mother and unknowingly making love to the father."

She continues, "And so I am the first to propose a nonbinary psychosexual narrative to avoid falling into the same generational tragic blind spots. Electra Rex, a merging of both names, an integration of both Oedipus Rex and Electra: Electra Rex it kills both parents and has sex with itself, and chooses to live."

"Electra Rex" arrives alongside a new Carlota Guerrero-directed music video, filmed in September 2020, that sees Arca assemble a cadre of fellow mutants as they take over Barcelona's Plaça dels Àngels in a display of radical intimacy and queer dominance. A more lo-fi approach than Frederik Heyman's glossy futurism, this visual offers yet another glimpse into Arca's sprawling world that encompasses everything from states of cyberpunk gender euphoria to utopian communities fostered in the dark basements of queer clubs.

Watch and stream "Electra Rex" off Arca's new album, KicK iii.

KicK iii:

01 Bruja
02 Incendio
03 Morbo
04 Fiera
05 Skullqueen
06 Electra Rex
07 Ripples
08 Rubberneck
09 Señorita
10 My 2
11 Intimate Flesh
12 Joya

Photography: Frederick Heyman

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