Autre Ne Veut

Speaking with Arthur Ashin (aka Autre Ne Veut), one quickly surmises that Anxiety is more than a title for his second full-length album — it's a concept the 30-year-old Brooklynite is intimately familiar with. Since his self-titled 2010 avant-pop/electronic/R&B debut, he's progressed from the relative comfort of online anonymity to legitimate indie R&B curio, with all the press attention and scrutiny this entails. Ashin has gone on record saying he struggles with an anxiety disorder, but remarked that this didn't really factor into Anxiety. Rather it was a trope he simply wished to explore this time out. Lead single "Counting" is best representative of the project's progressive direction, cribbing generously from mid-'80s R&B and pop-inflected soul. "Ego Free Sex Free" is a highly charged track that owes a little to Usher's "Climax," while "Don't Ever Look Back" utilizes his signature falsetto over a haunting, mid-tempo beat. While Anxiety feels a tad contextually inconsistent, the time-worn tropes of the genre — love won and lost, ad lib to fade, etc. — are concepts Ashin wears earnestly, demonstrating deep respect and admiration for all things R&B and pop-soul.