“After listening to XXXXX about 100 times over, I can honestly feel my tits and pussy getting bigger,” Ponyboy co-founder Dill Dowdall tells Dazed of Arca’s upcoming album. These likely aren’t words to take literally (although we’ve only listened to the album twice ourselves), but they do speak to the electro-pop visionary’s strong alliance with trans communities the world over – themes that took centre-stage at Ponyboy’s theatrical listening party for the album in Glasgow last Friday. 

Opening with a bespoke soundscape curated by Ponyboy regulars Princessa Mangione III and Matt Robin, the event went beyond the traditional limits of a listening party. Instead, Dowdall and crew wove an immersive piece of nightlife theatre titled “The Doll Factory”, reflecting XXXXX’s central themes of transhumanism, sexuality and embodiment with a performance in which dolls – whose bodies had been cybernetically enhanced at the titular factory – explored their new forms through a series of visual rituals. 

“The dolls were guided through these rituals by members of ‘Ponyboy Labs’ conducting final tests before release,” explains Dowdall, whose clubnight has since become the beating heart of queer and trans expression in Glasgow. “The first saw our first doll, Huntress, becoming sentient during [XXXXX track] ‘Willow’, moving her body up a pole like a willow tree lifting through the soil – the initial moment of rebirth. In another, Luxx Williams, draped in yarn, guided our doll model Pixie Chanel – envisioned as a cybernetic cat – through themes of submission, domination and how dolls navigate power.” In its closing moments, meanwhile, the show came full circle with a ‘doll scientist’ by the name of Shrek666 symbolically submitting to the universe, their experiment shattering to pieces in front of them. 

The entirety of this performance was choreographed to Arca’s new album set to be released this Friday (July 31) – her ninth full-length project, and her first solo release in five years. Morphing through various meticulously constructed cyber-industrial soundscapes with not a single vocal across its 16 tracks, perhaps more than any other of her projects so far, XXXXX lends itself to looking inward. “Arca’s commitment to exploring identity through a transhumanist lens felt like the perfect opportunity to explore these themes through the world of a doll factory,” Dowdall explains. “The way trans women come to exist and are shaped, with the factory carrying gruesome connotations while simultaneously acting as a space of self-actualisation.”

This ambitious curation had been a long time coming. Dowdall describes Arca as “one of the founding members” of her personal Mount Rushmore and, over the past few years, she had regularly reached out to Arca’s team in an attempt to secure a collaboration. “Arca is and will always be that girl, and almost every doll I know reveres her as a huge inspiration,” she explains. “Arca’s music and artistic contribution pours through every facet and cybernetic vein of what I do and the community around it. She represents a certain limitlessness in how she approaches sound, visuals and art, and that has hugely inspired me to be bold in everything I do.”

Eventually, however, Dowdall’s persistence paid off. “Fast forward to three weeks ago and they contacted me to produce a listening party for the album,” she explains of how the party – the first of ten album listening parties across the world – came about. “Instead, I sent back a proposal for a nightlife theatre show, one that moves through my interpretation of the album's themes. When I listened through XXXXX I knew it was monumental and demanded an immense level of respect, as with everything Arca does. Anything less than what happened didn't feel like an option, and I was prepared to commit whatever time it took to pull it together.” 

Arca’s long-awaited ninth album, XXXXX, releases this Friday, July 30. Catch a closer look at Ponyboy’s theatrical listening party in the gallery above.