Loading details…
about this album
Xen is the debut studio album by Venezuelan electronic musician Arca, released on November 4, 2014 through Mute Records. The album was recorded over a largely improvised six-month period in 2014. The title of the album is a reference to Ghersi's "feminine spirit" as portrayed in the album artwork and videos. According to the artist, the designer Jesse Kanda asked "if I had a girl's name when I was a kid, I told him that I have this image in my head when I listen to a song of mine that I really love or that I feel happy with. I move really slowly in a very effeminate way close my eyes and I see this naked being who exists in front of an audience. Everyone is simultaneously attracted to it and repulsed". Upon reflection she felt that "Those were all projections of my psyche; of how I viewed my own sexuality and how I engaged with people through the lens of sensuality. Xen is an 'it'. I lean towards calling Xen 'her' in response to the fact that society historically leans towards men having more power. Me calling Xen 'her' is an equalisation of that". This is reflected in the video for the song "Thievery". Ghersi noted that the song-titles have little meaning except for "Failed" which was written about her then-boyfriend Daniel Sannwald. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 79, based on 22 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". AllMusic said "the way Arca plays
