The ever brilliant Owen Ashworth may have moved on to a new project, Advance Base (who I wrote about here), but has found the time to organise one last release under his Casiotone For The Painfully Alone moniker. In Cambridge is a live album recorded in 2010 in, well, Cambridge (Massachusetts). Members of Magical Beautiful and The Dead Science join Ashworth to form a full six-piece band that use a whole host of instruments (drums, pianos, strings, horns etc.) to reproduce some CFTPA favourites.
The setlist is superb, although with a back catalogue like CFTPA’s there was small chance of it being anything different. The overwhelming majority of the songs are from Etiquette and Vs. Children, with ‘The Subway Home’ from the older album Pocket Symphonies for Lonesome Subway Cars. Sure, there are favourites missing, but there was always going to be without a five-disc set.
I’ll end up just waxing lyrical if I try to write anymore so I’ll leave it at that. In my humble opinion, Owen Ashworth is one of the best songwriters from the past decade (I’d include him amongst the best writers full stop), and is someone you owe yourself to get acquainted with*. In Cambridge is available as a digital download or in lovely Coke bottle vinyl from Orindal. His label also do some great merch so have a look at that too.
*I ended up waxing lyrical. Apologies