Advance Base - Washington Phillips and Our Cat singles on Orindal Records

Throughout Casiotone to Advance Base Owen Ashworth has continued to work in his distinct confessional style that reminds me of icons like Jonathan Richman or Tom Waits. Artists who can get away with blunt imagery and simplistic compositions make it seem deceptively easy to the rest of us. They manage to reach deep emotional places using less, walking the line of being really specific to their experiences and knowing which ones are universally overlooked. Owen just put out a couple more great examples of his raw, effortless songwriting on his own label Orindal Records a few weeks ago. The first is a tribute to Washington Phillips, a turn of the century outsider musician who built his own kind of double Zither. Owen covers four of his eighteen known tracks on this mini EP, and his literal confessional hymns about Jesus take on new meaning through Owen’s contemporary interpretations.

The second single one of the best examples of Owen’s classic songwriting. Guaranteed to hit you at the worst possible time, I’m glad I don’t have “Our Cat” on my ipod so I don’t happen to get dirt in my eye on the subway.

On "Mother's Last Word to Her Son", from the Washington Phillips EP, Owen manages to capture a similar texture as the original less than clear recordings. It’s nothing obviously lo-fi or distracting it’s the simple way the room is mic’d and you can hear everything; the hum from the cables, the click of the hammond keys and a toy piano striking imperfect metal strings. There’s a slight percussion beat that could be a holding click track or generated from one of those old church organs.
Advance Base is perfectly suited to cover these melancholy tracks about Jesus and his higher powers from Phillips. The echo and distance on Owen's vocal even adds to this voice coming down from the heavens and letting you in on Jesus in a comforting way but don’t forget 'He's always watching you'. Advance Base strips the melodies apart into two synth harmonies managing as usual to get to a melancholy place with nothing - or is it because there's next to nothing? When the keys come to a rest, all you hear is the humming silence of an empty room and recording hiss because he approaches the material like a live recording, the kind of thing that he does the best.

"Our Cat" started out as a super limited run of 80 lathe cut singles and due to popular demand has ended up as this repress. It’s from Owen’s classic, cheap canned percussion era which when combined with his vocal style and minimal synth is more than just lo-fi. But the song itself about a lost cat is the star here. Owen's contemplative deep vocal, close to the mic describes checking the local ASPCA’s and hanging up fliers in the neighborhood. I first heard this live and the audience took it lightly, like this protagonist was making a lot out of something as trivial as a cat that didn’t come home. Hearing this original track and it’s lightweight waltz rhythm under the heartbreaking direction this takes is too much. I won't ruin the track, because it manages to capture all the seriousness of the situation and when his voce starts to shake I always get something in my eye. The way pets are made so helpless gets me choked up. The track is perfect because of the minimalism and raw sincerity and I'd bet every word of it is true.

Owen says about “Our Cat”:

Our Cat was first released as a limited edition lathe cut single in November, 2011, & its 80 copies went out of print almost immediately. Since then, not a week has goes by without someone asking me if it'll ever be available again, so I'm finally re-releasing Our Cat as a 7" vinyl EP. Remixed, remastered, & with a new bonus b-side, Our Cat will be available as a deluxe colored vinyl package with original artwork, lyric sheet, & MP3 download on July 23. You can stream the title track, pre-order the vinyl, & get an instant digital download right now from Orindal Records. For international customers, I recommend ordering Our Cat & The World Is In A Bad Fix Everywhere together & saving on shipping!

Get it from Owen's own Orindal Records.

Advance Base / Hello Shark split on PIAPTK Records

People in a Position to Know have been consistently coming up with the most amazing packaging for the lowly single and beyond, from an 8" square colored vinyl of Springsteen covers from Owen Ashworth and his brother to a sprawling 6 LP Wooden Wand boxed set (in appropriately enough...a wooden box), picnic plate shaped lathe cuts if I remember correctly he cut himself on his own machine...well machines plural because you can't have just one....literally, every piece breaks and you probably need to have a couple just for spare parts. It makes you want to move out into a part of the world where the cost of living is way less than brooklyn and start tracking down enough pieces to press your own records...in the meantime I will just be buying what PIAPTK is crazy enough to put together, always amazing, and worthy of blind buying their entire output. Consistently great, I admire all the projects they come up with over there.
It's no wonder Owen agreed to release a second single from his latest project, Advance Base, this time split with Hello Shark out of Burlington, VT, in a really nice matchbook printed chipboard sleeve from Stumptownprinters.
The Advance Base side starts out with a typically heartbreaking track, "Whirlaway The Horse", a Rhodes organ and a Whippany Rhythm Master (thanks liner notes) which is the sole core of his ever skeleton minimal structure. It serves to highlight Owen's songwriting, and this one is just a perfectly crafted story of the horse, Whirlaway that reveals a bar owners story verse after verse, and if this isn't based on some actual conversation late one night in a lonely bar then Owen, you are more of a genius than ever. Delivered in his deliberate understated style, barely rising above the trembling warmth of the organ melody, which against this ancient drum machine always reminds me of the sparse lonely sounds of Arise, Therefore, but Owen always manages to make these sad stories sound optimistic, the pieces seem to be always sort of working against that idea, and that's always the biggest trick of his songwriting, to give those kind of melancholy moments enough charm to be a little bit deceptive almost....once you start to investigate a little deeper.
Next up from Base is "Spanish Flangdang", which is listed as a traditional cover, and has a carnival uptempo carousel melody, which actually is so related to the Whirlaway melody they may as well be twins. This one still is riding that line of sadness, but maybe it's the closeness of these two that makes this sad somehow.
The B-Side from Hello Shark, starts out with "Stayed on an Island", recorded by Joey Pizza Slice in his apartment, the 4 piece reserved band lead by Lincoln Halloran on guitar and vocals, sounds like it works right alongside on old Palace album, he's just as understated in his delivery as Owen and the simple sentiments of making an island out of a mattress or giving a good friend a solo cigarette, come off as intensely personal, you're being let in on this intimate performance that doesn't ever need to be loud or scream for your attention. "Stars are Glow" continues this loose, good friends together writing music, a sleepy melodic track with Brooke Morrison bringing a high register harmony to the low key proceedings. A great pairing with Advance Base, and a serene end to 2011.

Get this one from PIAPTK who says:

The debut release from Casiotone For the Painfully Alone's Owen Ashworth's new band, Advance Base is a split with his Vermont buddies in Hello Shark (voted one of the 50 best new bands in America by the Boston Phoenix). 2 tunes each, in hand-screened arigato paks with free digital download coupon (and instant download upon checkout!).

Concern / Advance Base split 'Traditionals' on Orindal Records

When I saw that Owen was retiring the Casiotone for the Painfully Alone moniker on his last tour, I was a little worried that he might have called it quits altogether. After 13 years of touring and numerous full lengths, singles and collaborations it was enough work for a few bands, it was a sad loss, but he'd surely be forced back into the scene by one collaborator or another sooner or later. I just selfishly want to keep hearing what he's up to and catch a show now and then. The huge section of CFTPA singles would have to be enough...a mammoth memorial of different labels and discoveries in local record stores...because I have a disease of if I get into a band, I will have to keep an eye out for every single one of their seven inches.

Then I get an email from Owen letting me know about his new project Advance Base, and this split 7" with Concern, his brothers project where they cover Carter Family songs on both sides. They have to be the most famous music family beginning in the late '20s and who have the distinct honor of being one of the first bands screwed over by record companies...but you know what? No one will ever give a god damn about the Victor Talking Machine Company, but here we are listening to Owen & Friends reinterpreting these simple folksongs from The Carter Family in an entirely new way...I know which side I'm on, it's just sad there's such a price to pay for the Carter's.
Advance Base, according to the liner notes is a few collaborators: Nick Ammerman playing autoharp, Edward Crouse on piano, Jody Weinmann on bass, and Owen on among other things a 'rhythm box', which I want to imagine is just that, a special box that for some reason ended up on the recording, possibly sketched in as a temp track, and then finally elevating the cardboard square to an instrument. The same way those cheap electronics were given special attention in Casiotone...now that I think about it, it kind of goes for the whole concept of this release. Ancient, simple, unassuming songs that shouldn't otherwise be anything extraordinary and then finding a way to make it special....or to say, there are these mundane things in everyday life, they are just as important as the big ones....they might even be more so since you probably live with these more than the few times a year you're happy...or something equally as cynical and depressing.

But maybe that's because this song, "Single girl, Married girl', is a pretty insanely depressing view of a ladies future in the '20s. The song contrasts how the single girl goes shopping and wears nice things and the married woman sits by the cradle and cries? Those are actual lyrics...I guess this one was for all the single ladies in the audience...since the wives were all at home anyway with no time to go to a Carter show.
Owen and company create a simple rolling rhythm with a very unrock beat, just a downstroke of the autoharp and bass, don't make anything too fancy, don't stray far from that melancholy. The whole band singing in a simple harmony over the solid see-saw rhythm. There's barely a hint of Owen's vocal, but the layered combination of back of the room mic'd piano and electric piano/organ sound is unmistakably CFTPA. It's a huge sound that takes an organic melody and hints at the percussion happening underneath, it comes off as an early demo setting in a primitive Casio, and not just because it's coming from Owen.
The B-Side, from his brother Gordon and his project, Concern is a track called, "The Wandering Boy", which is actually a kind of sweet sounding melody in spite of the fact we're presented with a somewhat low quality recording of warbled beyond belief lyrics, that go between out of reach angelic choir to gurgling robot, and which really shouldn't sound somewhat comforting coming out of a talkbox...but paired with this definitively church organ, it ends up like a degraded reel to reel of a lost sect's hymn. It's not something to be afraid of. Sure, you don't understand it, but it isn't going to hurt you....maybe being so removed from the original source it's passed into it's own unique sound. Extremely long, it might be somewhat slowed down on top of the lo-fi nature of the recording, but that kind of experimentation is to be expected for this family affair...wait there's another connection to the Carter Family.

Get it direct from Owen's own Orindal Records

Tracks:
1 Single Girl, Married Girl (Advance Base) 3:27
2 The Wandering Boy (Concern) 5:13

500 copies on random colored vinyl with 320 kbps MP3 download.
Risograph covers printed by Issue Press in Grand Rapids, MI.

You can also get this single from PIAPTK who has that square 8" of Springsteen covers from both brothers!