Producer/artist, FIRSTWORLD (Kris Alvarez) has dropped “What A Drag.” The latest in a group of singles that explore various themes on anxiety through love songs.

“What A Drag” is about how similar anxiety is to an abusive relationship in the sense that you consciously know you should walk away from it, but the fear of being left without a safety net to fall back on when you’re on your own again is enough to make you stay. Familiarity has a lot to do with it because being single is new territory every time we enter it, and it’s the same with anxiety when we try to face a particular fear or trauma. The unfamiliarity makes it even scarier than dealing with the panic attacks and wishing it all just goes away on its own.

That fear eventually eats away at you, and it melts away your character, your personality, and you have front row seats to see it all happen, but you only watch because it’s grip is tight. Friends begin to notice you’re not fun to be around anymore, family gets worried and inquisitive, and you just sit there, watching. Because that’s all you’ve got until you find the courage to stand up to the next anxiety episode and say “not again”.

“When I was considering ideas for what this video would be about, almost all the ideas were based on telling the story from a first-person view or first-hand experience. I finally settled on the first person view of life being a really trippy, surreal film (in French, of course). So I found this really cool CGI tech demo reel from the 90s on the Prelinger Archives, and used that as my foundation.

I wanted to give a face to the inner-dialogue in my head, and what better face than my own? Our anxiety always comes from within, which means we’re constantly getting in our own way of seeing the beauty of life without worrying about what might occur. It becomes a very unhealthy and possessive relationship with our minds, and our subject experience is therefore hindered because of it.”