“… a smart progression from Ashworth’s Casiotone recordings, presenting that project’s bittersweet introspection with more nuanced production.” Pitchfork
Advance Base is the new project by Chicago, Illinois singer songwriter, and producer, Owen Ashworth (formerly Casiotone for the Painfully Alone).A Shut-In’s Prayer is Ashworth’s first full-length release in over three years, and his first under the name Advance Base. Recorded at home and in piano practice rooms at the Chicago Public Library, A Shut-In’s Prayer is an intimate collection of deliberately crafter but decidedly lo-fi torch songs, waltzes and ballads.
Accompanying himself on his Rhodes 54 electric piano, Ashworthsings nostalgic stories about lost loves, childhood friends, estranged siblings, and hard feelings over simple drum machine rhythms and spare percussion. The additional arrangements that fill out the ten songs intertwine gentle upright piano melodies and expansive electric bass, filling the spaces between plainly-sang harmony vocals and strummed autosharp chords, with the occasional creaking floorboard or snapping reverb spring, to remind you of the cramped rooms where this album was recorded.It is a different sound than one might expect from the dude from Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, but Ashworth’s keen ear for melody and idiosyncratic skill as a lyricist have only improved in recent years, pushing his memorable song-writing in all new directions. At age 35, Ashworth has a lot of music left in him, and he’s just getting started again.
Watch the new video by Philip Hodges for opening track,
‘Summer Music’ on PitchforkA Shut-In’s Prayer is out now on Tomlab.
