In Arca’s universe, the unattainable reaches of the mind are despotic. Subconscious impulses and uncharted insecurities radiate through his art, teetering between the physical, outer perception of oneself and the restless corruption that subsides. On last year’s debut full length, Xen, the 25 year old Venezuelan producer, real name Alejandro Ghersi, explored aspects of identity, family, and other cerebral concerns with a muted coalescence of neoclassical hip-hop that plunged into experimental territories without haste.

Accompanying the project were the embryonic instillations of an aesthetic (under the direction of artist Jesse Kanda) which reinforced the personality crisis; mutilated contortions of the human form exhibited a representation of something familiar to all, but in a perverse and disturbing manner. Thus Ghersi, like a puppet master to a morbid, explicit take on a family program, unveiled an outlandish plurality in the human physique and its relationship with the concomitant faculties of the mind.

On this year’s Mutant, the outré expedition into the bleak conflict between humanitarian ideals and aberrant extremes are furthered in a vastly augmented quantity; twenty tracks sprawl over an hour of graphic, nearly flamboyant efforts in melding the apogees of hip hop, minimalistic classical tinkerings, and extraterrestrial sound design.

The focus of the inquisitions here is of feral, unrestrained severity, as Ghersi’s cyberkinetic arsenal of instrumentation from Xen returns alongside the central premise. Many of the cuts are laden with drowning pianos (see the flanging sketch “Peonies” or “Else”) with other elements of classical music such as sparse, ephemeral pizzicato or bowed string pads. “Sever” exemplifies this, with a throbbing, almost prog-rock style chord progression, and “Extent” practices skeletal, drawn out chamber orchestration. Maximal, rave-like synthesizer stutters, discordant beyond recognition of any source material, manifest in some locations such as on the opener “Alive”. Also returning from Xen is his signature warbling arpeggio that stretches, tumbles and recoils like dice in a lava lamp.

As on EPs Stretch 1 & 2, heavily manipulated vocal clips occupy head-space in many of the mixes here, like the infuriated yells of the aptly named “Anger”, or the crystallized gasps of breath and blood curdling screeches on the seven-minute title track. This song, by far the longest on the album, is in a meandering, perpetual metamorphosis as its dense harmonic nebula glides, poised over a stratus of sonic debris. This nature appears on much of the minimalist efforts across the record, free from any structural gravity.

On the thickly layered hip-hop-centered tracks, highlights being “Front Load” and “Soichiro”, the magnitude of both melodic and frequential material is far greater than substantial, becoming overwhelming many times. Elements granulate and coagulate in a balance of dissonance and union, and in the gaps between this, beauty and clairvoyance certainly percolate, although a temporal existence. Brought forth again from here is the dissension, the joint from which Mutant gyrates and writhes; Ghersi’s artificial environment allows the unaccommodated anger of all to engender itself freely. In this world, the trope is inverted and intelligence exists in transience, not animosity.

Mute Records / Arca