| &&&&& | |
| Type: | mixtape |
| Artist: | Arca |
| Cover: | Arca_mixtape.jpg |
| Producer: | Arca |
| Prev Title: | Stretch 2 |
| Prev Year: | 2012 |
| Next Title: | Xen |
| Next Year: | 2014 |
&&&&& is the debut mixtape by Venezuelan electronic producer Arca. It was released on 23 July 2013 through Hippos in Tanks on SoundCloud.[1] Even though 14 tracks are listed, the entire mixtape is in sequence as a single track.[2] A vinyl release of the mixtape with an alternative album cover was released in January 2014 and was limited to 500 copies.[3] On 28 July 2020, Arca announced a re-release of &&&&& through PAN, making the mixtape available on mainstream streaming platforms for the first time on 18 September 2020.
&&&&& is an experimental electronic record with influences of dub, hip-hop, grime, ambient music, trap, and glitch.[4] Stereogum described the record as "even darker and denser" than Arca's two previous Stretch EPs.[5]
&&&&& received critical acclaim from music critics.[6] Tiny Mix Tapes says the mixtape "has the potential to conjure an emotional frenzy that’s alluring to the senses in a way that so much electronic artistry fails to even approach." No Ripcord praised the mixtape for "its density, its intensity, its I'm-lost-in-a-big-city feel, its warm gust of beats blowing while the subway comes squeaking into the station, its darkness, its late-night ecstasy, its rawness, its rawness like raw milk, like drinking raw milk or eating sushi in an inexpensive restaurant somewhere on a street with trash and tweakers, its little motifs that twinkle like stars or Christmas lights, its muscular compactness." In a review of the reissue, Pitchfork said that "there’s something a bit melancholy about listening to &&&&& now—the feeling that instead of freeing us from the past, technology has left us stuck in a loop, endlessly refreshing in search of a better world that never arrives, but that we can still dream of in our art."[7]
The album was eventually sent to Icelandic musician Björk's management, leading to the two artists collaborating on her eighth studio album Vulnicura.[8]
| Peak position | ||
| UK Independent Album Breakers (Official Charts Company)[9] | 19 |
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