I bloody love Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. He's a great tunesmith & only releases records when he's poured his heart into them & is truly happy so the market doesn't get totally saturated in his melancholy jingles. Talking of jingles, you don't get much more jingly than 'Ice Cream Truck', the lead track on this clear vinyl 7" EP. It's a CFTPA classic, chuffing along in a swirling analogue dreamworld, his hazy downbeat mumble complementing the euphoric keyboard that really does sound the most ice creamy thing ever. 'Town Topic' is a countryesque instrumental tune that'd sound great as the theme to Postman Owen, the miserable as fuck & oppressed Royal mail worker who loves nothing more than dumping all the letters in a woodland copse & buggering off to the boozer to drown his (profound) sorrows. Both jaunty & sad at the same time. How does he do it? Another instrumental opens the flip, more sweet, simple & melodic pop sounds that burrow into yr heart and set up home. He gets out the distorto pedal for closer, an alternative version of 'Green Cotton Sweater' that sounds like the most beautiful song ever made buried under a jackhammer electro beat stuck in a fuzzy loop. Genius, but then again there's hardly any really decent albums this week & tons of wonderful singles, something there's usually a dearth of!!!!!! The 'Town Topic' EP is out on OIB who manage the ace feat of having a squirrel eating a record as the logo, worth it for that alone!
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What their label says...
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone is the musical alias of 30 year old American film school drop-out Owen Ashworth. To date Ashworth has produced four Casiotone For The Painfully Alone albums that have defined a hybrid strain of raw, emotional and very homemade synth pop, instantly recognizable as his own. Claustrophobic two-minute character studies shudder with reverbed beats, blown-out chords and simple but infectious melodies, all layered beneath Ashworth’s bittersweet lyrical odes to love lost. Town Topic is the soundtrack EP for the American independent film Stay The Same Never Change by the critically acclaimed New York / Los Angeles artist Laurel Nakadate.
Tracklisting:
SIDE A 01. Ice Cream Truck 02. Town Topic (instrumental) SIDE B 04. I Love Creedence (instrumental) 05. Green Cotton Sweater (version)
