Casiotone For The Painfully Alone Advance Base Battery Life (TOM127CD) CD 2009 OBC [

Release : Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - Advance Base Battery Life

Artist : Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
Album : Advance Base Battery Life
Genre : Indie
Source : CDDA
Label : TomLab
URL :
Date : 03-10-2009
Encoder : LAME 3.97 / -V2 --vbr-new
Quality : 160kbps 44100 kHz Joint Stereo
Tracks : 15
Time : 38:16 min
Size : 47.08 MB

1 Old Panda Days (Feat Nick Krgovich) 2:19
2 Lesley Gore On The T.a.m.i. Show (Version) 3:08
3 White Corolla 1:57
4 White On White 2:09
5 Holly Hobby 2:32
6 Lonesome New Mexican Nights 2:07
7 The Only Way To Cry 0:46
8 It's A Crime 3:14
9 Missoula 0:35
10 Hot Boyz (Feat Dear Nora) 3:30
11 Born In The U.s.a. (Feat Concern) 4:29
12 Streets Of Philadelphia (Feat Concern) 3:44
13 Graceland 4:17
14 Sunday St 2:32
15 Voice Of The Hospital 0:57

From Kraftwerk to Leonard Cohen, The Smiths to Suicide, and Pet Shop Boys to
Smog, Chicago's one-man musical army Owen Ashworth a.k.a Casiotone for the
Painfully Alone - has been bracketed with all manner of illustrious names in the
course of his eleven year career. But in collecting the 7-inch split-singles and
compilation tracks he released from 2004-7 (all but two of them on CD for the
first time), Advance Base Battery Life provides compelling evidence of the
singular nature of this industrious film-school dropout's talent.

If 2006's sumptuously accomplished "Etiquette" was Casiotone For The Painfully
Alone's "The Queen Is Dead", this is his "Hatful of Hollow" - a selection of
formative fragments which add up to an utterly satisfying whole. In expanding
his musical palette from minimal battery-powered electronics to include strings,
flutes, tabla and pedal-steel, Ashworth has lost none of his miniaturist's eye
for detail. And his forensically acute two and three minute character-studies
are all the more poignant for their (relatively) expansive new settings.

The journey from CFTPA's brutally stripped-down 1999 debut "Answering Machine
Music" to the lavish pocket symphonies of "Etiquette" has taken in all manner of
unexpected detours. And Advance Base Battery Life compiles musical snapshots of
those drunken get-togethers and maudlin solo road-trips into a vivid and
memorable photo-album. Where mumbled aphorisms once plunged into echoing chasms
of reverb, now the impeccable electro-pop credentials of "White Corolla" and
"Holly Hobby" are established with pristine clarity. And superficially
surprising cover choices - Paul Simon's "Graceland", Missy Elliott's "Hot Boyz",
and not one but two Bruce Springsteen tunes (each with the power to pluck at the
heart-strings of even the most hardened Boss-sceptic) - soon reveal a beguiling
internal logic.

It's worth noting at this point that the music of Casiotone For The Painfully
Alone has become a much less solitary affair in recent years. This compilation
alone contains collaborations with Nick Krgovich (of Tomlab label-mates No
Kids), Dear Nora's Katy Davidson, and Gordon Ashworth of Concern (who also
doubles as Owen's brother). "Scattered Pearls" vocalist Jenny Herbinson also
returns to provide lead vocals on two tracks "Lesley Gore on the T.A.M.I Show
(version)" and "White Corolla" (the latter having inspired an animated video by
London illustrator Julia Pott which has now become an improbable YouTube
sensation, uk.youtube.com/watch?v=z3dUgPvkYnw).

But it's the very particular lyrical and musical vision of Owen Ashworth that's
always at the heart of things. And whether you're a newcomer to his morbidly
vivacious micro-narratives, or a long-term devotee - hungry for more clues as to
how he got from there to here - Advance Base Battery Life is one short sharp
shock you'll want to experience over and over again.

Ben Thompson, Observer Music Monthly, winter 2008-9