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She described “KICK” as a series of “self-contained, mythical, almost world-building exercises that interrelate to one another,” in a mid-November video interview, wearing a simple gray hoodie. But it also pointed to the directions Ghersi would explore in the collection’s following albums, as she continued to slice up pop templates, concoct manic breakbeats, luxuriate in synth excess and cut and paste the jagged edges of reggaeton. “KiCk i” arrived in the summer of 2020 and contains some of the grandiose, forlorn torch songs that appeared on her self-titled album, as well as features from Björk, Rosalía, Shygirl and Sophie. Here, she stretched and collaged celestial synth tones and haunting, cavernous echoes of sound, suffused with tortured romantic anguish. Next came a series of mixtapes and studio albums - “Xen,” “Mutant” and “Arca” - that revealed Ghersi’s gifts as an artist in her own right. Listen to some of the best new recordings here.
Since then, Alejandra Ghersi has become a multidisciplinary performance artist, producer and singer, but her years as a club kid - abundant with improvisation, spontaneity and openness - remain a foundational part of her identity. Her relative anonymity allowed her to let loose in front of the small crowd, and those who clicked with the percussive, ululating machinations that filtered out of her USB hollered and jerked along. Only a handful of people in the crowd knew who she was - at the time, she was mostly an experimental electronic producer with a reputation for harnessing industrial dissonance, the high drama of classical composition and uncomfortable metallic grit. She plugged in her USB and grinned as she blasted unreleased treasures, filling the room with glitchy electronic shrapnel that would become her devastating self-titled album a few months later. Before long, Arca took over the turntables, and anticipation and curiosity percolated through the air. An ensemble of art school kids and unsuspecting patrons milled about, while a D.J. On a frigid February night in 2017, Arca and a cabal of fashion and nightlife icons strolled into the Lower East Side basement dive bar Home Sweet Home.