Autre Ne Veut—Age of Transparency

Autre Ne Veut’s Age of Transparency is an astonishing album. It’s also practically impossible to summarize. “Beautiful” isn’t the whole story. “Ugly” couldn’t be further from the truth. Even “astonishing” doesn’t do this album justice. Age of Transparency is what an R&B album would sound like if it was tearing apart at the seams. It’s beautiful in the same way a melted candle is beautiful. It’s an album that’s constantly at war with itself. The results are occasionally stunning, occasionally off-putting, but constantly raw, honest, and intoxicating.

Arthur Ashin has been putting music out under the nom-de-plume Autre Ne Veut since 2010, and it feels like his career has been hurtling toward Age of Transparency. In a way it’s braver and more complete than 2013′s excellentAnxiety, pushing the neurosis, self-mutilation, and paradoxical beauty at the center of that album to its furthest limits. It opens with one of the more remarkable first tracks in recent memory. At the core of “On and On (Reprise)” is a syrupy, almost maudlin, ballad. What makes it work is the way Ashin subverts the track as he twists and perverts the sound world around him. It twitches with unnatural repetition, down and up-tunes itself into oblivion, and shreds apart into static. As this happens, Ashin’s melody begins to grow more and more manic and cartoonish. It’s a listen that’s captivating in its grotesqueness. “On and On (Reprise)” is such an incredible opener because it encapsulates everything Age of Transparency is. It lets the listener know exactly what he or she is in for if they allow the record to continue to spin.

“Age of Transparency” is another standout. After close to two minutes of atmospheric chords and a searching sax solo, a brooding, anxious anthem steps out of the aether. The subsequent 3 minutes are about as straightforward as Agegets, including a chorus that earns the distinction as the most memorable on the album. It’s a reminder that Ashin made his name on the back of unabashedly melodic R&B/Pop music in the vein of “Counting” or, to a certain extent, “Play by Play.” “Age of Transparency” and “Panic Room” are the closest Age comes to aiming for that kind of glorious, sing-along tunefulness. Then, as suddenly as it arrived, “Age of Transparency” melts back into the primordial smoke that birthed it.

Skipping over some excellent tracks, especially the skin-crawling “Switch Hitter” and wonderfully unexpected fake-me out of “World War Pt. 2,” we come to the album’s closer, “Get Out.” It and opener “On and On (Reprise)” come together as my favorite album bookends in a long time. In contrast to the dodgy sentimentality of “On and On (Reprise),” the 7 and a half minute pseudo-gospel closer is pure catharsis. The use of drum kit, rather than the drum machine that dominates most of the album, is an especially brilliant point of comfort. Yet, Ashin would never let the listener off that easy. As he continues, his vocals return to the cartoonishness of the intro even as the clap-along finale sings him up to heaven. It’s a fascinating statement that asks whether the release is genuine. Ashin almost sounds as if he’s playing a character — one who is as happy and unburdened as he wishes he could be.

This is the headspace Age of Transparency brings you to over its roughly 45 minute run time. Even as everything Ashin portrays feels honest, nothing feels genuine. It’s fitting that the “transparency” in the album’s title and on the cover reveals nothing but emptiness. It’s openness as misdirection — life as lived on Facebook or Instagram. Ashin spends 45 minutes letting you into the deepest recesses of a mind that doesn’t really exist. It’s an artifice, a simulacrum of emotions that are so raw and “true” that you never ask if they’re really what’s going through Ashin’s head. It’s in this final way that Age of Transparency wages war against itself. It’s an album that spins out wave after wave of passionate, emotionally resonant music while simultaneously pointing out the artificiality at the heart of all artistic expression.

The contradictions at the heart of Age of Transparency lead to moments that ring hollow. An album so pre-occupied with self-destruction will inevitably succeed from time to time. The album slackens a few times — you really feel the 5-minute plus runtimes on several tracks — and Ashin’s maximum effort vocals occasionally wear on the nerves. But, those shortcomings are a more than fair trade for the many more moments of transcendence Age reaches. It’s part and parcel of an Autre Ne Veut album by now; his brand of visceral, occasionally ugly pop music will sometimes veer too far to be saved. But, when he brings it all together — and he does on Age of Transparency far more often than not — there are few artists as thrilling, cutting-edge, or essential.

Essential Tracks: “On and On (Reprise),” “Age of Transparency,” “World War Pt. 2,” “Get Out”

8.5/10