INTRO
For Queer music analysis I’ve chosen Piel by Arca from the album Arca 2017.
Arca, aka Alejandra Ghersi, is a Venezuelan non-binary trans experimental artist who has worked as a producer for artists such as FKA Twigs, Kanye West and Rosalia amongst others, but her self-titled album “Arca” 2017 marked a transformation point in her identity and artistic direction. This album is identity centred as it reflects her exploration of gender and self-hood, and also contain queer aesthetics. Most of the tracks could be categorised as experimental pop.
CONTEXT & QUEERNESS
Arca’s music portrays the topics of vulnerability, dysphoria, softness and shame. An example of this traits is shown in the lyric “quitame la piel de ayer” (remove yesterday’s skin from me). This shows the discomfort with her body while exposing her vulnerability to the public, the use of word ‘skin’ also creates an intimacy with the listeners. Another important feature of this track related to queer embodiment is the use of a non-binary voice, a gender fluidity that represents the current state of the artist.
AESTHETICS
The song has an ambience of minimalism and ethereal timbre. At first, she starts humming like in a “bedtime lullaby ” (Lozano, Pitchfork, 2017), the voice is stretched, breathy and almost whispered, and together with the slow ambient soft pads creates an intimate sonic space. In contrast, something that stood out for me was how she uses the sound of microphone’s feedback which is usually a very unsettling sound in such an intimate song. But overall, the elements all work together to create this feeling of vulnerability and softness, as if the artist is about to break.
PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES
On a more technical side, we have a minimalistic approach to arrangement with just the use of vocals, mainly one voice and soft pads in the background with a lot of spatial reverb (long decay reverb) which creates this ethereal feeling. And for the effects, also minimal, she only modulates the pitch of the vocals in one section to present a slightly altered gender and use slow attacks/soft transients to create softness. The track uses extremely sparse arrangement, relying mostly on voice processing and atmospheric pads.
SONIC IDENTITY
Arca’s known for mixing extreme sounds with fragility, you can see this in my previous mention of using mic’s feedback in this track full of soft sounds. Another key aspect of Arca’s music in this track is the trans-feminine vocal expression which are central to her queer sonic identity.
CONCLUSION
Arca’s music makes me understand how to use the elements of softness and vulnerability to create this space of intimacy where the truth can be revealed and can offer a political challenge which is often related with strong, harsh protest and violence. This inspires me to think that I could express ideas that may cause controversy with more freedom knowing that I could do it in a more kind and approachable way. In the end, queer music is all about challenging conventional structures in both music and society.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- Papermag.com. (2025). Page Restricted. [online] Available at: https://www.papermag.com/arca-transformation? [Accessed 10 Dec. 2025].
- Pristauz, J. (n.d.). In Conversation with Arca. [online] GLAMCULT.COM. Available at: https://www.glamcult.com/articles/in-conversation-with-arca/.
- Lozano, K. (2017). Arca. [online] Pitchfork. Available at: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23063-arca/ [Accessed 10 Dec. 2025].
- Genius. (2017). Arca – Piel. [online] Available at: https://genius.com/Arca-piel-lyrics [Accessed 10 Dec. 2025].
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