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

The post Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – In Cambridge appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Advance Base sees Ashworth (along with Nick Ammerman, Edward Crouse, & Jody Weinmann) is an evolution from CFTPA but everything that made it so great remains intact. This is no chillwave side-project, no 80s inspired synth revolution, just an extremely talented lyricist doing what he does best. I think Casiotone songs manage to capture that nameless feeling in young people (especially in this day and age, I can’t speak for previous generations) of sadness even in everyday life. A tangle of hopes and nostalgia, the past and present and future. Melancholy without melodrama. I remember watching a video with David Foster Wallace where he comes across the same sort idea. The below quote is his attempt to address what he aimed to achieve with Infinite Jest:

“For the upper-middle class in the US, particularly younger people, things are often materially very comfortable and there is also often a great sadness and emptiness. It’s difficult to think about and difficult to come up with answers in the abstract.”

Advance Base continues this. Narratives unfold in Ashworth’s lugubrious voice, often very simple stories describing nothing more than ordinary life – situations that you or I could realistically find ourselves in, and that sense of emptiness is nailed down a bit better, it becomes easier to see. And of course acknowledging and sharing these feelings with the whole point of art. I would guess that the whole reason Wallace wrote in the first place was to attempt to fill the emptiness in himself and through that maybe help others.

The first album, ’A Shut-In’s Prayer’, is to be released on Orindal Records in the US (May 15th) and Tomlab in the UK (today apparently). If you haven’t heard CFTPA then please please please go back and explore all of the past releases. You won’t be disappointed.

The post Advance Base – A Shut-In’s Prayer appeared first on Various Small Flames.