Perhaps he’s lost the batteries, but the keyboards are mostly absent from this new release by Owen Ashworth
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone ‘vs Children’
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Perhaps he’s lost the batteries, but the keyboards are mostly absent from this new release by Owen Ashworth, AKA ‘Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’, instead he opts for pianos and organs. Perhaps they were nicked, as Mr. Ashworth seems to have developed an unhealthy obsession with crime. This is revealed in song titles such as Tom Justice, The Choir Boy Robber, Apprehended at Ace Hardware in Libertyville, IL’ a track which sits somewhere between Arab Strap’s bed-sit balladry and Electro-Shock Blues-era Eels. As well as an obsession with criminality, Ashworth also writes about children (as you might guess from the title) although it is done somewhat in the spirit of Bill Hicks (a man who said that you can tell kids are smarter than adults because he didn’t know any kids who had children and a job.)
Ashworth deliberately references others work for effect. The melancholy pitch of the album reaches its peak on Killers, a track about abortion which consciously apes Bowie’s Heroes with the line ‘we could be killers/ just for one night’. On Optimist vs. The Silent Alarm the jaunty rhythm of When the Saints Go Marching In is married to a tale of criminals (yet again) caught out. He even titles a track Harsh the Herald Angels Sing (oofph – Ed). In each case there is a juxtaposition of a work of uplifting optimism with his own melancholic and downbeat worldview (on Optimist vs. The Silent Alarm, it is the alarm that wins, bringing an end to the criminal careers of the protagonists, whilst the Bowie reference turns one of the most empowering lyrics in popular music on it’s head to meet his miserabilist metier).
At turns clever and heartfelt, this is an apt demonstration that ‘Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’ don’t need the Casiotone to underline the lo-fi melancholy.
Words: Rover