TBA Diaries: Arca at the Works

Underneath Alejandro Ghersi's neck-couched headphones was a glimmering, faux-diamond collar. Behind the decks as Arca, he had a lot of similarly shining moments that hid in the rough of the Time Based Art Festival's Works series.

Joining Ghersi for a B2B DJ set was Ashland Mines, LA club producer Total Freedom. At times Arca's industrial hip-hop, hard rave and offbeat reggaeton fused with Total Freedom's futuristic club music. They teased alt-club jams like Beyonce's "Freakum Dress" and Soulja Boy and Nicki Minaj's "Yass Bitch Yass" with curt samples over washed-out kick drums, but also dropped a Deftones track and other oddities.

The music and the warehouse setting at Fashion Tech were set for a rave. The bucket of earplugs available at the entrance promised a set as thundering as Tim Hecker's earlier in the TBA program. Unfortunately, the volume, or lack thereof, was a letdown. With so many fans turning up, couldn't you turn it up at least a little, sound gal?

The highlight of the night, though, was when Arca took the mic and began a staccato but melodic rap over the jams—anyone familiar with dembow will know the speed and dexterity with which he handled the Spanish words.

Though the somewhat buttoned-up crowd was a little confused by the rhythms plucked from the clubby alleyways of the world, projections—including midnight-black torsos writhing and two nude overweight women carousing underwater—provided some inspiration.

The music was phenomenal. Next time, though, I'd like to see TBA let more of it shine through.

WWeek 2015