AUTRE NE VEUT
Birthdays, Dalston | April 16th
In a recent interview with FACT’s Chris Kelly, Arthur Ashin – the singular member of Autre Ne Veut – stated that his approach to writing music involved “… working with and against pop forms in different ways as much as possible”.
With his new full-length Anxiety, tellingly released on Daniel Lopatin and Joel Ford’s Software label to much international acclaim, he succinctly proves his point; though often mentioned in the same breath as Tom Krell’s How To Dress Well and the tuneless chancers in Inc., Ashin’s work generally bypasses the cracked and shimmering prettiness for full force emoting and histrionic production, owing, it seems, far more to 80s teen soundtracks, power balladry and the effortless songcraft of Scritti Politti than the bedroom melancholia of his peers. It’s astoundingly successful.
Tuesday’s sold out show at Birthdays perfectly displays Autre Ne Veut’s sonic strengths. Bookended by the recent singles Play By Play and Counting – easily ANV’s best songs to date – the set is a surprisingly concise 40 minutes, Ashin backed by a two piece band which leaves him unburdened to emote freely and enthusiastically for the duration. Its sonic trajectory is near-perfect, maximalist banks of synth and ludicrous harmonised guitar lines segue into quiet solo piano (in World War) and enveloping noise. Only the brief Promises stands out as being relatively restrained, propelled, as it is, on a single looping arpeggio, which is faintly hypnotic in its insistence. Onstage he is positively kinetic, unexpectedly so given the nature of the music (though the occasional po-faced staring comes across as a little affected, given the relative humour and intelligence of his interviews). The sound is so crystalline that we’re led to wonder – despite the presence of a drummer and keyboardist/samplist –whether the entire backing is being played straight through the PA.
Therein lies perhaps the only criticism of the project’s live iteration, that it’s doubtful that any of the songs will have a chance to develop a degree of organic or spontaneous character in this arena; they’re so dense with movement and ideas that they seem unadaptable, with only brief alterations in vocal lines distinguishable from those on record. Thus, where the brief blast of saxophone on the recorded version of Counting is jarring and amusing in that context, here it seems incongruous to Ashin’s expounding of feeling. In addition, his vocals, obviously the forefront of every track, tend to flit between belting volume and piercing falsetto with little in-between. This is minor criticism though; if the delivery comes across as little like non-ironic hipster karaoke, it’s the most enjoyable and affecting example of this possible, and it’s almost bizarre that something this shameless can feel so right.
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Words: Tom Howells
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