Advance Base Battery Life

Album Review

Having released enough singles and compilation tracks to warrant a collection of them, Owen Ashworth pulls them together on the enjoyable Advance Base Battery Life, pure catnip for committed fans but not without interest to those unfamiliar with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's way around understated, enveloping electronic pop. A slew of covers toward the end shows Ashworth's interest in a variety of approaches — on the one hand there are two covers each of Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, on the other is a more recent effort, Missy Elliott's "Hot Boyz," done in collaboration with Dear Nora and keeping the original's deep rhythm clip but otherwise transforming it into a very Casiotone-sounding number, down to the static crumble on the singing. But the originals deserve the most attention, with Ashworth's ear for lovely melodies and often striking lyrics about the interactions of life, romantic or otherwise, getting to stand out front and center. (One of the best and simplest comes on "White Corolla" as guest vocalist Jenny Herbinson sings "You take your coffee black/Just like your mother would.") Songs like the shimmering, melancholic "Holly Hobby" and "The Only Way to Cry," under a minute long but with a wonderful lyric about movies, loneliness, and sorrow that makes a perfect short story précis, could have easily appeared on a regular Casiotone album and are lovely, immediate standouts here. Ashworth's familiar vocals, slightly distorted and feeling more like a contemplative whisper than a formal delivery, gets matched throughout by the various guest performances — besides Herbinson and Dear Nora, his brother Gordon from Concern appears on the Springsteen covers.