ASTN

Austin Sanders brings a tender touch to everything he does as ASTN. Since debuting in 2017, the Panama City, Florida native—now based in Los Angeles—has refined his pillowy R&B, exploring rich new seams of heartache and yearning. He went viral in 2021 with a cathartic R&B flip of Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever,” but his own songwriting is just as emotionally invested. Inspired by the painful process of moving on from a breakup, 2023’s Where Do We Go From Here? sounds like it’s being delivered at the closest of range. Such intimacy has been rewarded by live audiences: “The number-one feeling is having it be sung back to you,” Sanders told Apple Music in 2023. “There’s really nothing like it.”