Experimental icon Arca brings a new stirring audiovisual experience with “Nonbinary.” In the new music video, she appears as a butterfly laden bon vivant, a pregnant woman with animatronic nurses, and the goddess Venus within her clamshell. Addressing sex and gender issues quite bluntly, the sparse electronic song contains provocative lyrics such as “It’s French tips wrapped around a dick / Do you want a taste?” The vocals are delivered in a confrontational rapping style that matches the amelodic electronics. At the end of the video, we see two versions of Arca arguing with one another with flames rising all around them. This striking image paints a picture of the conflict between masculinity and femininity that many nonbinary people face. This is particularly notable given the dearth of music that addresses nonbinary identity. As always with Arca, it will be exciting to see what is next to come from her.
Tag: electronic
Laughing Ears – “Sandouping 3”
“Sandouping 3” is a track by Shanghai artist Laughing Ears. Her work shifts between a number of electronic genres including footwork, ambient, and noise. The song comes off of the compilation HKH Cryosphere, created by the stellar record label Chinabot. It is a compilation of tracks by artists from seven different Asian countries and it is dedicated to the Hindu Kush Himalayas, whose melting glaciers impact the 10 major rivers they feed as well as all the countless people connected their banks. It was released on 4/20/20 and it is unknowable if that is meant to relate Hindu Kush at all.
“Sandouping 3” is concerned with Sandouping, China, a town which is connected to the Himalayas by the Yangtze River. In particular, it likely refers to the Three Gorges Dam which Sandouping is famous for. It is the largest power plant in the world and has caused deforestation, extinctions, landslides, and stagnation. It is also extremely powerful, avoiding millions of tonnes of emissions compared to coal power. All of these features tie into the central ecological theme of the album and she seems to raise the question of the future of this dam.
“Sandouping 3” is one of the more dance friendly tracks on HKH, sounding like Laughing Ears personalized take on witch-house. Sparse drums pierce through dark ambience and a foreboding bass synth. The threatening nature of the track brings to mind bleak images of future dam failure. In that sense, the song serves as a cautionary tale for what will happen if we cannot slow the melting of the Himalayas. The song also conveys the sheer power of this enormous dam, which can both be admired and feared.
In Chinabot’s own words:
“Water is vital, spiritual, and restorative. It is a common that connects us all to each other, and to our biosphere. We are drawing some of the possible futures for the river in order to promote dialogue and hope about how our relationship could change. Water can quickly become wild without attention, it becomes alive, a new ecosystem where all the 10 songs can begin to live in this compilation.”
Check out Laughing Ears’ music or pick up HKH Cryosphere here.
Tokimonsta – “Renter’s Anthem”
Released right around the beginning of many Shelter in Place orders, Tokimonsta’s “Renter’s Anthem” could not have come at a better time. This throwback house track emerged just as people were having their income taken away yet still facing the merciless demands of that same income from landlords. Renting has possibly never been more difficult, and it has given a huge number of people a taste of the precarious experience that low income people have had all along. With these troubles comes the possibility of this new wave of discontents banding together to fight off the senseless demands of landlords. “Renter’s Anthem” feels an optimistic marching song for solidarity among renters worldwide.
This song features driving drums and uniquely gated vocals repeating, “Are you hanging on?” For many, the knee-jerk answer to this would be “No!” Yet seeing as the song release was accompanied with a message from the artist to, “keep spreading love and positivity, we all need it right now,” this song seems to ask us to reflect on the ways that we are indeed hanging on in spite of it all. Fans of Yaeji will definitely enjoy the nostalgia for 90’s house and general cheeriness presented on this track. What’s all the more impressive about this song is that it comes out after Tokimonsta’s brain surgeries for Moyamoya disease, after which she lost language and music comprehension. As she regained these abilities, she had a triumphant return with 2017’s Lune Rouge and now comes back again on the new album Oasis Nocturno. Hopefully us renters will show the same perseverance that she has. ❤
Pick up Oasis Nocturno here.
Caterina Barbieri – “Clessidra”
Italian synth artist Caterina Barbieri returns after her amazing 2019 record Ecstatic Computation with “Clessidra,” a generous contribution to Enisslab’s WorldWideWindow compilation. WorldWideWindow is a 56 track benefit album for Red Cross’s COVID-19 response work. It is a concept album where artists were encouraged to release a song they felt was relevant to the crisis, along with a picture of a window in their quarantine space.
Barbieri’s addition to the compilation is the 14 minute “Clessidra,” which means ‘hourglass’ in Italian. Within it you can hear sequencer loops possibly inspired by the maddening repetition of being in quarantine, where it feels like the sands of time are slipping away. It spends much of it’s time with an ostinato in 9/4. The quarter notes of the ostinato are placed in such a way that it would make perfect sense to have written it as two normal bars of 4/4, but there is an extra note placed in there to make things feel as if each repetition is dragging on just a bit too long. After this has cycled on for some time, things begin to liven up a bit with more melodic lines overlaid to bring a great deal more rhythmic diversity.
In the style of minimalist composers, lines phase in and out of sync with each other, creating much more complexity than just the sum of its parts. I’d like to think this symbolizes a kind of hope, where the repetitiveness of the quarantine phases into a more liberating experience as relationships begin to rebuild themselves into something new. Regardless of how you interpret it, “Clessidra” (and much of Barbieri’s other work) provides a mesmerizing experience that certainly helps spin the hourglass when we are flooded with such a great deal of emptied time. It is exciting to see artists who are able to both speak to the current crisis and support aid movements at the same time all from within the confines of their own home.
You can buy Enisslab’s WorldWideWindow benefit album here.
Freeing Music 