If KiCk i is a multidimensional self-portrait that held all of Arca’s many mutations, KICK ii sees her deconstruct reggaeton rhythms she grew up listening to in Caracas, balancing structure and chaos to create her most accessible work yet, without sacrificing any of her uncompromising experimentation; the rising cycle. KicK iii sees her returning to the club nights that shaped her early adult-hood where Arca was born: the surrealist DJ, warping dance music structures to fit her singular vision-relentless rhythms to drive listeners into uncharted states of euphoria, anthems for the basement-dark queer clubs of our cyberpunk near-future; the climax of the cycle. With kick iiii, the cycle resolves, and a new species of xenopop emerges, sensual and serene. Arca’s talents as a composer and sound designer take the lead on closing track “Paw,” setting melodies to drift on deep, gentle waves of orchestral ambience, an oceanic bliss. On kiCK iiiii the ambient ecstasy transitions swiftly into lullaby-like compositions as we come to the conclusion of the KICK series; the renewal stage.

In her own words “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. And so I am the first to propose a non-binary 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: it kills both parents and has sex with itself, and chooses to live”.

So yeh, it’s an album about fucking your dad and killing your ma. Take or leave that whichever way you need; the music utterly slays on its own merits, but certainly takes on a whole other, cyber-operatic, uchronic-mythical dimension in context that may take more than a few listens, and an ability to understand Spanish, to really grasp. On the most immediate level it’s an arresting experience, reeling form the rambunctious snarl and attack of ‘Bruja’ to the piquant hyperballad of ‘Joya’ via the recoiling technoid ferocity of ‘Incendio’ and the staggering futurism of ‘Electra Rex’, with thrilling sense of restraint and deviousness in ‘Rubberneck’.