Again in 2019, Arthur Ashin took to Twitter to clarify why 4 years had handed since his most up-to-date album as Autre Ne Veut, Age of Transparency. His grandmother had died. He’d made modifications in his life; gotten a canine. However new work was on the way in which, he mentioned: “nonetheless must be blended and mastered, however the manufacturing and efficiency are simply on the last changes section.”
5 years after that, and the document in query, Love, Guess Who?? is lastly right here, ultimately concluding the trilogy he started with 2013’s Nervousness and adopted up with 2015’s Age of Transparency. Although the set spans over a decade, the challenge’s tone has remained remarkably constant. Like its predecessors, Love, Guess Who?? bridges dramatic, R&B-inspired vocal performances with lo-fi takes on high 40 radio instrumentals, then folds within the experimental digital sounds popularized by PC Music and Hippos in Tanks within the early 2010s. Think about Methods to Gown Nicely tapping Oneohtrix Level By no means’s manufacturing on the Weeknd’s Daybreak FM, however swapping out ’80s schlock for bed room pop as a key touchstone. The last decade might need modified since Autre Ne Veut’s final album, however he’s remained in dialogue with the identical influences.
One other fixed woven via the trilogy is a sequence titled “World Struggle.” Every new LP options an up to date iteration of the observe, underscoring the continuity from album to album. Life modifications, {couples} break up, the world slips nearer to unavoidable and fixed doom; “World Struggle” stays. The throughline from the primary “World Struggle” to the silky easy third iteration on Love, Guess Who?? serves as a useful illustration for the way in which Autre Ne Veut has advanced during the last decade—and the methods his core pursuits have stayed the identical.
The music’s title alludes much less to a violent international battle than a feeling. Over digital drums comparable to those who Joel Ford programmed for Ashin again in 2013, Autre sings of a loss each perplexing and tragic. “So you actually don’t care,” he asks over a weeping synth patch that appears like a foghorn looking for readability. “Phrases are solely issues that I’m attempting to say,” he provides, grappling with heady concepts—like the character of communication itself—masked as experimental-leaning R&B.
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