Something I keep coming back to in my music is the tension between two extremes: healing and chaos, hope and anxiety - these big themes are inside us, flickering, all day.

Arca

Categorized in : Two Healing Anxiety

You might be raised as a boy in a very conservative environment and then somehow, at some point, there was a side of me that felt really powerful and sensual in a way that was more feminine. For me, it's not about living my life as a boy or a girl - but I'm also not trans - it's just that one day you wake up feeling masculine, and one day you wake up feeling feminine. The flickering in between those two states is what's most fertile for me.

girl powerful boys

A lot of me figuring out how to love myself more involves finding the things that I'm ashamed of and looking them right in the eye.

how-to-love love-myself eye

There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. And the reason I'm feeling that is more because on your breathing and your intonation than the actual words.

breathing frustration feelings

A lot of me figuring out how to love myself more involves finding the things that I'm ashamed of and looking them right in the eye. And something I always find beautiful about Jesse's work is that he finds beauty without any calculation. People say that his work is dark, but he never sees it as such. For him it's all almost about educating people to process why they feel disgust.

eye dark beautiful

Someone can only be vampiric if you allow it. by Arca

Someone can only be vampiric if you allow it.

ifs

There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. There's often two words that are close in meaning, yet what I'm trying to say is in between them, or it might be a little more layered and nuanced. Having this conversation with you is exciting, because I can feel you resonate, even though we're on the phone. That's really beautiful to me.

frustration trying beautiful

A few years ago, I had an interest in making things that felt more like "pieces." That was when I was making a lot of stuff that you could call beats, and it dawned on me that I could say much more nuanced, precise things if I tried to make them more composed. It sounds a bit corny, but I do love the idea that something can make you forget that you're listening and just transport you to somewhere else in your head.

corny listening forget

I try to get my subconscious to puke out as much stuff as I can because I'm really not judging myself while making music. If I crave a frequency in the mid, I'll just drag in a sound and try to mold it into what feels right. It happens very quickly. And if I've been making a piece of music for five hours and it sucks, I'll just throw it away. There has to be an entry point to learn about myself, or an idea I've never tried, because then I can try on a new skin and see the world through a different perspective. If I have that spark, then I'll save the file.

perspective skins judging

I had an unspoken treaty with myself to never lie in my lyrics, so, for a long time, when I wrote love songs, I would use genderless pronouns, like "dear" and "darling" - like some kind of granny!

song long lying

I try to have things change before I get bored, and I figure other people might enjoy that too; I try not to let anything repeat for long enough that you can get used to it.

bored long people

When I sit down to make music, I try to enter a flow; I always open a blank session and just make something that I feel like making.

blank flow trying

Only after a piece of music is done does my frontal cortex allow me to organize what might be trying to come out of my subconscious.

done doe trying

I try to get my subconscious to puke out as much stuff as I can because I'm really not judging myself while making music.

judging stuff trying

First thought, best thought. I live by that when I make my own mu... by Arca

First thought, best thought. I live by that when I make my own music.

my-own live-by firsts

With song titles, I try to keep a healthy sense of humor while sa... by Arca

With song titles, I try to keep a healthy sense of humor while saying something at the same time.

healthy song trying

I love vocal music, but I've had a hard time understanding myself through the English language. So it just seemed to me that if I relied solely on creating a voice out of the music, then I might be able to reach something more profound.

creating hard-times voice

When you actually make a new friend, and you make music and laugh really hard together, that can give you a lot of confidence and nourishment and encouragement.

encouragement giving laughing

It's been a growth process for each of us to understand why we find certain things beautiful. And if we do find something beautiful, we'll chase it, because you want to understand yourself and what your psyche is creating.

creating growth beautiful

I do love voices so much that I will use them and manipulate them. The presence of a human voice in a piece of music is really exciting, even if it's just someone's breathing.

breathing voice use

It struck me at some point that the things I wanted to say had to be wordless. I had to renounce words in order to go deep into the practice of making materials and textures that would express what I'm trying to say more accurately.

practice trying order