Like his sometime labelmates and fellow experimental/pop line-straddlers D’eon, James Ferraro and Ford & Lopatin, Arthur Ashin — aka Brooklyn-based recovering enigma Autre Ne Veut — harbors a fondness for garishly plasticine 1980s production tropes. We’re talking big, soupy synth washes, blindingly bright gated snares, ersatz New Age shimmers and twinned metal-tone guitars. But it’s no good pegging him for an ironist: Ashin’s singing voice, in its own way at least as excessive as his production style, is a searing, Prince-indebted falsetto that broadcasts an earnestness you just can’t fake. Cutting back significantly on the artier oddball extremes of his self-titled debut — though fear not, it’s still plenty weird — Anxiety (Software) is a tight, polished and deviously hooky set of breathless electro-soul that pushes past insular left-field-R&B tinkerers like How To Dress Well to suggest an affinity with latter-day stadium-pop contenders a la Gotye and Twin Shadow. Aside from being maybe a quarter-century late, it feels improbably convincing (though still utterly implausible) as a legitimate mainstream bid.

Tue., Feb. 26, 9:15 p.m., $12, with Majical Cloudz, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frank­ford Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.