Mutant (album)

Mutant is the second studio album by Venezuelan electronic music producer Arca. It was released on 20 November 2015 via Mute.

According to Arca, the album chronicles, "sensuality and impulsiveness as escape routes out of rigidity". It has been labeled as a noise, trap, industrial and experimental album. To promote Mutant, four singles were released. Upon release, the album was critically acclaimed and was ranked as Tiny Mix Tapes' favorite album of 2015.

Composition
The Independent described Mutant as an album of "intricately layered sound collages" in which Arca employs mostly machine-made textures "to convey extremes of emotion – be it euphoria, menace, paranoia, melancholy." Sam Richards of NME wrote that while Arca was clearly influenced by R&B, hip hop and dubstep, they distort and subvert these "familiar aural cues", "never allowing [their] beats to lock into conventional grooves." They commented that "Sever" and "Faggot" use elements of trap, while the calm interludes "Else" and "Extent" act as counterpoints to the record's "more disorientating noise assaults."

Rachel Aroesti of The Guardian said that Mutant profiles Arca's experimental work, eschewing the "corrupted hip-hop beats" of their earlier work in favour of a style that had grown "[i]ncreasingly unaccountable to any kind of rhythmic framework". They added that the music often typically comprises "stabs of industrial sound that eventually assemble into a cranking, Frankenstein's monster of a refrain". Simon Chandler of PopMatters said that "Mutant has Arca throwing everything — glitch, IDM, dubstep, industrial, techno, ambient, noise and world music — into an experimental microcosm of a record, an electronic hothouse where every conceivable touchstone coexists in an awkward, ugly but ultimately breathtaking harmony." They considered this "brand of inchoate, diversified electronica to be "music for a globalized world, for an Earth in which ancient traditions sit alongside the often devastating power of new technologies".

Critical reception
Mutant received widespread acclaim from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 81, based on 21 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim".

Mark Richardson of Pitchfork gave the album a very positive review, stating, "Compared to Xen, Mutant feels less composed and less indebted to classical music. With many tracks on the former album you could squint a little bit and imagine them being performed by a daring new music ensemble, à la Aphex Twin with Alarm Will Sound. But Mutant leans toward soundscape, avoiding proper songs." Richardson concludes, "On Mutant, Ghersi turns a fixation on porousness and instability into a kind of spiritual pursuit."

Writing for Exclaim!, Daryl Keating said Mutant "is an album that is eventually rewarding, but only to those who are determined to follow its scattered pathway to the satisfying, aggregate end."

Personnel

 * Songwriter/producer – Alejandra Ghersi
 * Artwork – Jesse Kanda
 * Mastered By – Matt Colton