On the opening monitor of Love, Guess Who?? Autre Ne Veut’s first album in practically a decade, the singer thrusts us proper into the second the place they lose management: “I used to be on the cellphone once I had it with you.” It’s a visceral approach to kick off the follow-up to 2015’s Age of Transparency, which continuously finds Arthur Ashin within the throes of despair, negotiating area with others, itching to maneuver on and, finally, really feel higher. Ashin might have reservations concerning the a part of their personhood that the report represents, however that’s as reflective of the time it took to let the songs go – which they used to concentrate on producing for different artists and pursuing a grasp’s diploma in social work – as it’s of the artist embracing a extra emotionally unfiltered but meditative strategy. Finishing a trilogy that started with 2013’s Nervousness, the album retains the poignant intimacy of Ashin’s lyrics however dials again the dizzying textures and rapturous chaos of earlier installments, permitting itself to be extra earnest in its expression and softer across the edges. Autre Ne Veut’s music remains to be emblematic of the human mind and voice failing below the burden of huge emotions like craving, and right here greater than ever, grief. However for all of the pressure and battle embedded in Love, Guess Who??, it’s by no means sounded lighter on the opposite finish.
We caught up with Autre Ne Veut to speak about how remedy, Asghar Farhadi’s movies, a Milton Nascimento music, and extra impressed Love, Guess Who??.
His grandmother’s demise
Certainly one of my earliest recollections of listening to your music was listening to ‘Counting’, which was concerning the concern of shedding your grandmother. Within the first replace you shared concerning the new report, you mentioned that she handed away proper earlier than Age of Transparency was launched. How did her have an effect on your outlook on artwork on the whole, but additionally going into a brand new undertaking?
I’ve been form of preoccupied along with her dying for some time earlier than it truly occurred. She was fairly essential in elevating me; she used to select me up from faculty my entire life rising up. My mother and father have been each actually busy, they needed to work actually late usually and begin work actually early. She was the one that I spent my day-to-day with as a child. She was form of snarky and had a nasty perspective, which I actually thought was hilarious. Her youngsters didn’t find it irresistible, however I actually obtained alongside along with her simply being form of grumpy. She appeared previous, even once I suppose she was in all probability simply in her early fifties, which to me doesn’t sound that previous anymore. [laughs] Age is relative, and she or he felt like she was 100 years previous even then, however she was whip-smart. There’s one thing about grandparents: while you’re born, you’re cognizant that they’re going to die, which I feel is such an attention-grabbing relationship to have. It’s constructed into your elementary understanding of who they’re.
I had skilled some loss with mates and a pal’s pet that I took exhausting once I was a child, however not likely household till that. In order I used to be getting nearer and nearer, I simply saved changing into extra preoccupied, and I attempted to spend increasingly time along with her. Sooner or later, if individuals are too sick and the hospital will not be actually going to do something to assist, they simply go house. I spent her final days there along with her, and we watched this present known as Name the Midwife, which is a very sappy present about delivery, largely, within the ‘60s in London. So we simply sat there and watched, and I might cry quite a bit. Finally, her passing and that technique of watching it occur and being along with her whereas it was taking place actually reformatted what I prioritized on the whole. I beloved music once I was rising up, and I find it irresistible now once more, however form of round that point, I wasn’t loving it that a lot anymore, which is possibly as huge of a purpose as any as to why I stepped away. I felt like I may assist different individuals, however I didn’t have no matter that factor is that individuals must say, “I must put this out.”
There must be some robust motivation, and I feel her passing form of killed that for me. Additionally, I simply grew to become actually obsessive about engineering and micro variations in mixing. I might hearken to everybody else’s music and take into consideration the way it may have sounded higher or hearken to my very own music and take into consideration all of the alternative ways it may simply sound higher, and it wasn’t about simply choosing up an instrument and taking part in, or simply singing, or simply being a physique that makes sound. It was about one thing actually technical and particular. I feel I simply misplaced the thread, and her dying actually confirmed that. I did a tour proper after Age of Transparency was launched, and I obtained again, and I simply couldn’t get away from bed for 2 weeks, regardless that she had died months and months earlier. I used to be identical to, “Why am I doing this?”
I don’t even know if it was simply that, however it’s positively blended in, as a result of I hold writing about her. I hold writing about that have, so clearly she’s an essential determine in how I conceptualize creating for some purpose. And I don’t know if I do know the reply to why that’s.
Had been you extra hesitant to jot down about your grandmother, or simply write, after her loss?
It felt so pressing to do the writing. I feel releasing it’s a totally different course of, letting it go. It stops being yours. For no matter purpose, I wanted to carry on to this materials. Most of it was achieved being written 5 years in the past, so there’s one thing in that transition from the creation to the discharge that I’ve struggled with additionally. However I feel she favored it. She favored that I made music. She would solely hearken to classical music and avant jazz, so she would at all times examine my goofy pop songs to, like, Debussy. [laughs] She’s like, “It’s very pop, like Debussy.”
Asghar Farhadi’s movies
I’ve at all times actually gravitated in the direction of movies that form of play with perversion and want in actually difficult and generally hyper-intellectual methods, like Michael Haneke or Lars von Trier or Céline Sciamma. I noticed A Separation within the theater as a result of it form of crossed over, and I feel it was an Academy Award nominee. After which additionally The Salesman – each of these have been actually hanging to me on the time, for the way they felt like they have been speculated to be thrillers, however simply weren’t. They have been nearly individuals. I feel what resonated a lot with me about his movies then, and nonetheless does – and even Cronenberg that I beloved earlier than – is issues which have pathos however are additionally filled with concepts; not solely is there feeling, however there’s additionally all of the thought behind the sensation.
It’s not that Farhadi’s movies aren’t good – they’re sensible. However the very first thing that comes throughout is these are human beings making an attempt to barter what’s exhausting about being an individual, and how you can negotiate that personhood. My favorites are these two known as Fireworks Wednesday and About Elly. Each are a little bit extra express of their form of thriller format than A Separation and The Salesman, and regardless that they’re nearly style movies, initially, it’s simply human beings making an attempt to determine how you can negotiate area. But additionally in Fireworks Wednesday – that is all my ignorance, I apologize – however there’s some vacation the place fireworks are shot off throughout Iran in celebration. And because the movie builds in stress and climax, there’s human beings interacting, however the fireworks change into extra erratic and shocking, and the sound design – I noticed it in a theatre on the Metrograph, and also you simply really feel the fireworks going off in ways in which elevate this sense of simply being an individual, dwelling via chaos, making an attempt to outlive and interact with different individuals.
That additionally marked a time once I wished to make music that’s much less in my head – which is perhaps humorous for individuals who hear me singing too exhausting and take into consideration how histrionic I’m. However for me, I’ve at all times felt like I want to do that physique stuff, however needed to sofa it in rationale: Right here’s why I’m being a clown or too aggressive. And with this report, and simply the best way I interact with music now, I’m simply making an attempt to make what feels good and what feels proper and actual, with out filtering it via that fairly as a lot.
Remedy
It’s attention-grabbing how remedy figures into your work in each thematic and inventive methods: Remedy has at all times been an enormous theme in your music, however you’ve additionally likened it to the method of manufacturing as a form of motherhood. On the threat of overintellectualizing it, does it function a reference level on each ranges?
100%, that’s proper. Once I wrote that down, I used to be interested by some particular stuff – working via my relationship with my dad, with my companion, and realizing how far I used to be holding myself from being as weak as I might be with the individuals I like. Once I don’t enable myself to be weak, I don’t actually enable myself to attach, and that’s one other factor with this report. It’s humorous as a result of I wrote these songs so way back, and now I hear my very own immaturity in them, which is humorous. I believed I used to be actually nailing some reality, after which I’d suppose again on the issues I mentioned and the precise fights or conversations in a number of the songs, and more often than not, they’re a little bit fictional, too – there’s reality behind all of them, however I’m additionally making an attempt to seize a Platonic reality greater than an Aristotelian one. Once more, overintellectualizing – however I’m making an attempt to get the gist of one thing that’s true, not simply the main points of a real second.
With ‘Develop into a Flower’, I used to be obsessive about this concept of being like a flower, like, “I’m gonna be so weak, so delicate.” How cool is it that flowers simply get to develop and be there, and since they’re so stunning, no person hurts them, you recognize? It’s this bizarre metaphor, like, “I’ve to be a flower.” And now I’m undecided if that’s fairly proper, only for me in my life, however on the time, I used to be so protected, so defended – not ever like a troublesome particular person [laughs], however I had all these methods, like intellectualization, to keep away from being current in relationships with family and friends. And I feel this report is basically about me grappling in plenty of methods with studying how to try this.
On a lyrical degree, there’s a manner that remedy bleeds into the language of the lyrics. I’m curious how acutely aware you’re of that as nicely now.
It’s attention-grabbing for me, as a result of I wouldn’t be placing this report out if I didn’t actually find it irresistible on some elementary degree. But additionally, the creator is 5 years youthful than I’m, which is simply attention-grabbing for me – and a few of it’s good, a few of it’s unhealthy. However it’s attention-grabbing seeing me within the midst of my very own therapeutic course of, and of my very own technique of changing into a greater therapist, additionally – I’m on all totally different sides of that course of. It’s not even that I feel it’s not proper; it’s simply humorous to see a special me. It’s like a disjointed relationship to myself.
‘Minas / Paula E Bebeto (Medley)’ by Milton Nascimento
That one required a little analysis. I used to be making an attempt to determine what I used to be listening to on the time I used to be ending that report, so I used to be going via my play knowledge on Spotify, and that was the highest music of that 12 months. There was another stuff as nicely – Nilüfer Yanya’s ‘Child Luv’ I actually favored and listened to quite a bit. However a bunch of music from ‘70s Brazil and plenty of Milton Nascimento on the whole. I hadn’t actually been into his music broadly. He has this collaboration with Lô Borges that, for no matter purpose, was remastered within the 2000s in some unspecified time in the future. I listened to that in isolation and by no means actually explored his discography. However then, at one level in 2019, I used to be like, “What is that this about? Is there extra?” And I grew to become obsessed. I don’t know what the hell he’s speaking about – I don’t converse Portuguese in any respect, so I don’t know what his lyrics are about – however I’ve by no means felt a physique of labor that, simply on a musical degree, touched me in the identical manner of complexity, nuance, magnificence, and nuance that Stevie Marvel’s did for me. His first six data or so, possibly extra, there’s a lot mastery, a lot excellence, but additionally a lot feeling and stress. That music, to me, does a very good job encapsulating this bizarre play and uncanny magnificence, but additionally feels so home made.
I bear in mind, twenty years in the past or no matter, I used to be like, “Guitars are lifeless. Fuck guitars. Each band has been a guitarist, a drummer, and a bassist, and we don’t must make music that manner anymore. Nothing new below the solar; solely synthesizers and peculiar samples, that’s every part.” I felt this bizarre technological elitism or one thing. Like, “Let’s simply use destroyed CDs and peculiar noise makers and synthesizers; that’s all music ought to be made with.” And I feel I used to be actually connected to this concept – once more, an overintellectualized form of worldview. Round that point, there was simply this notion of, “Oh, no, music can simply be these stunning songs which are simply made with huge hearts and massive emotions.” I feel this theme goes to maintain coming again time and again in so some ways, however this was just like the seed for me, the place I really feel like I’m once more with music, the place I simply hearken to music. [laughs] I find it irresistible. I hearken to largely stuff from the ‘70s and stuff that simply feels heat, earlier than the mastering wars, earlier than excessive frequencies and low frequencies have been everywhere. Simply stunning songwriting, earnest shit. It was the second the place that turned for me, the place I used to be like, “What concepts am I holding on to which are stopping me from simply being an individual, having fun with, feeling? Why am I not letting myself really feel this stuff?” I feel that music is simply emblematic of all of that.
Outsider jazz, funk, and soul music
The press bio clarifies that this isn’t an album about falling out and in of affection, however from what we’ve talked about, it form of is about falling again in love with music. Did you actually fall out of affection with it, although? How do you hint that journey?
Yeah, I feel I did. From once I can bear in mind, I might sing alongside to trumpet components and guitar components. I simply beloved every part about music. I’m not good at it; I acknowledge that’s form of an annoying factor to say, however I’m not naturally a gifted musician. I’m not virtuosic. I beloved it first, and needed to work exhausting to have any grasp of any of the instruments that I take advantage of. It’s plenty of work for me; it at all times has been. However from once I was actually younger, I used to be actually filled with play, and I used to be okay that I wasn’t good. I felt that, and I feel this undertaking was constructed – I do know I’m speaking about concepts and intellectualizing issues, however it’s additionally constructed as a chance for me to only let myself actually sing. I began interested by this undertaking, ANV as an thought, round 2004. I used to be simply interested by these moments in music the place individuals sang too exhausting, Patti LaBelle’s wails or Otis Redding, simply these moments of breakdown, the place the voice was ugly and thrilling on the similar time.
There’s a music by this band known as Lime, which is a Canadian, high-energy, Italo-disco-adjacent group. It’s possibly a husband-and-wife duo; I don’t truly know that a lot about them, however they each sang, they usually’re each not that good. However the music was actually infectious to me on the time, they usually each simply actually sang. They gave it their all, they simply ripped. One thing about this mixture of issues allowed me to really feel at liberty to only make. So, ANV for its first variety of years, via producing my first report – the self-titled report that I put out on Olde English Spelling Bee in 2010 – all that materials, and a bunch of fabric from a report that I by no means ended up placing out, it was earlier than it was actually professionalized. I ended up having a label in some unspecified time in the future, however Olde English Spelling Bee was only a man making it work form of factor, only a dude locally who put out bizarre stuff, like James Ferraro and this outsider hypnagogic weirdo shit.
I feel it was simply so playful and so vital for me as an individual to only have an outlet, a catharsis for my aggression, my intercourse, and a spot to place these issues. Socially, I’m fairly shy and delicate and am not these issues fairly often. So it was a spot for me to be like: Right here’s the place the place you possibly can simply be gnarly, be disgusting, be passionate, and be overwhelming and overwhelmed. That was a container for that. After which as soon as Nervousness got here out, that was the start of it being exhausting for me in a bizarre manner. It’s a childhood fantasy, like, “Holy shit, I get to dwell off of constructing music.” But additionally, I don’t know – it took the magic away from it. And like I mentioned, I additionally grew to become actually obsessive about constancy and blend engineering. I’m not a great combine engineer, however I grew to become actually obsessive about issues sounding pristine and with the ability to hear frequencies and all this stuff. It grew to become tremendous scientific, and that simply made these issues exhausting to find it irresistible.
I don’t know if there’s a single day that I wakened feeling this manner, however in some unspecified time in the future, I did get up and I used to be like, “Oh, this factor that was like a fucking fireplace in a lighthouse, that gave me a purpose to get up on daily basis – this isn’t there anymore.” I used to be grieving my grandmother and doubtless a little bit depressed, however I felt like I misplaced that too. And I pretended like I didn’t lose it to myself. I wouldn’t let myself be like, “This isn’t it. This isn’t the factor you’re meant to be doing.” I wouldn’t consider that, so I used to be making an attempt to provide for different individuals and doing music for commercials. I had moments that it felt good, however it was simply tougher and tougher to inspire myself to do it and to care.
However in some unspecified time in the future, I used to be like, “That is all you do. That is your life. That is your job, you possibly can’t hate it. You’re not allowed to hate this factor that’s your life.” I feel it was round that point, 2019, I simply moved upstate and did a pre-pandemic isolation 12 months and completed this report for essentially the most half. After which got here again, a month and a half later the pandemic hit New York, and I used to be prepared. [laughs] My thoughts was ready for it. I used to be like, “All proper, let’s return into isolation mode.” And it was throughout that point the Spotify algorithm gave me this music known as ‘I Don’t Need No person’ by Eddie Harris. He’s a jazz participant, and the music is insane. It’s like Frank Ocean earlier than Frank Ocean existed. It’s this funk-soul epic, and it’s so unhappy and determined and delightful. I constructed a little bit radio station simply to mechanically feed me new music primarily based on this one music, and began doing watercolor portray and would simply hearken to music. I wasn’t actually making it throughout the starting of the pandemic; I used to be simply listening time and again and over to all this music from the ‘70s, simply bizarre form of outsider jazz, funk, soul stuff.
Weirdly, I used to be portray this picture of Britney Spears in her first nervous breakdown, the place she shaved her head, and there’s an image the paparazzi took of her having simply damaged an umbrella and scowling on the display. I simply painted that picture over and over in watercolor and listened to soul, funk, jazz out shit. One thing was in a position to blossom there, and it’s like, “Oh, music! It could possibly simply be free and good.” Once more, that ties into what Milo Nascimento was pointing to earlier than, however one thing occurred in that time frame that I shifted from feeling – this possibly feels like an excessive amount of, however once I didn’t really feel like music was my guiding gentle anymore, I didn’t know what to do. It was like, “What do you do in life? If this isn’t it, what the fuck is?” Quite a lot of this time since then has been me figuring that out and constructing out a life for myself by which music can exist and I can find it irresistible, however I may also simply be an individual who does different issues too. That’s okay, and people issues are essential as nicely.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability and size.
Autre Ne Veut’s Love, Guess Who?? is out now by way of Insurgent Our bodies Music.
