Stream Arca’s New Madre EP

Stream Arca’s New Madre EP

Last year, Arca released the excellent KiCk i, which is supposed to be the first of four in a series of albums from the Venezuelan-born producer. No word on what’s going on with those but Arca is having fun in the meantime. Last month, she released 100 different AI-generated versions of one of the highlights from KiCk i, “Riquiqui,” and today she’s back with a new EP called Madre.

It’s four variations on the same track, “Madre” — the other three are called “Madreviolo,” “Madre Acapella,” and “Violo.” All of them are in the 7- to 9-minute range and the first “Madre” features contributions from composer Oliver Coates.

Here’s a statement from Arca about the project:

I wrote ‘Madre’ years ago, and I did ‘Madreviolo’ playing the cello myself, before working with Oliver. After recording ‘Madreviolo’, I destroyed the cello I bought specifically for this. It had to be like a one-time thing for the version where I pitched up my vocal to castrati registers. But the original version with my unprocessed vocals, which felt a necessary version to share alongside Madreviolo needed an arrangement that I could envision but couldn’t hear. When I shared the acapella version with Oliver there was an insane resonance and chemistry; where he took it felt like the place I dreamed of but couldn’t reach without him.

Check out the EP below.

The Madre EP is out now via XL.

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