Biography
Owen Ashworth operated Casiotone for the Painfully Alone as his lo-fi solo endeavor from a Portland base, where he fused the introspective ballad style associated with Bright Eyes and the battery-powered mischief typified by Atom & His Package. The Casio SK-1 and customized hot-rod Casiotones served as his primary instruments, while his words combined the sardonic tone of Stephin Merritt with the direct sincerity characteristic of the Mountain Goats. His debut effort, the 1999 release Answering Machine Music: A Brief Album in Twelve Parts issued on his own Cassingle USA imprint, functioned loosely as a concept record built from inventive musical answering-machine messages; several pieces, among them “Theme from David Hanna,” originated as recordings made straight onto his device. In 2001 Tomlab put out Pocket Symphonies for Lonesome Subway Cars, which incorporated actual instruments such as cello and drums. Twinkle Echo appeared in 2003, and Etiquette followed in 2006, further broadening Ashworth’s palette through additional analog instrumentation. While handling remixes for Dudley Benson and Headlights, he still advanced the Casiotone project, whose fifth album, the stylistically varied Vs. Children, surfaced in early 2009. At the close of 2010 Ashworth discontinued both the CftPA name and every composition written under it. The next year he launched Advance Base, a venture that depended less on inexpensive electronics and mirrored his ongoing development as songwriter and arranger. He has also contributed to Mark Kozelek’s band Sun Kil Moon.