Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at DayTrotter

Daytrotter, an American version of the Peel Sessions of sorts, regularly features various Indie artists for their live sessions. Sometimes there is a particular chemistry that arises, and some groups stop by the studios for regular visits.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone have twelve songs available for download from three different sessions on the DayTrotter website. These songs, taken from previous releases and recorded in 2006, 2007, and 2008, serve as a sort of unofficial live album, and while there is not any previously unreleased material featured in these sessions, the fact that it’s free makes up for this.

The songs come from the albums Etiquette, Twinkle Echo, Answering Machine Music, and Pocket Symphonies for Lonesome Subway Cars.

Casiotone: A Fitting Name

Owen Ashworth, who for all intents and purposes is Casiotone, fills his songs with melancholic and lonely characters. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting band name. The live setting makes these songs seem even more intimate, which is rather difficult to imagine given the diary-like nature of his releases.

On “New Year’s Kiss,” the song seems to portray the hope that a single kiss will be a way to start the New Year with a fresh start, even though in the back on one’s mind this isn’t a real possibility, as things are “not the way you’d imagine it. “Jeane, If You’re Ever in Portland” finds Ashworth being immediately drawn to a woman in attendance of his show, even though he knows that the sort of long-distance relationship that would be involved would never amount to much.

Even more self-defeatist in attitude is Ashworth stating that he couldn’t “break up the band,” even though the band basically is Ashworth and whoever he has touring with him. The refrain at the end of the song of “Miles and miles and miles” gives the song a haunting end to the song. “I Should Have Kissed You When I had the Chance” finds Ashworth performing an old song mostly by himself, as he states, because he didn’t want to have to teach it to his band. The effect of the solo performance makes the song perhaps the highlight of the three DayTrotter sessions.

Town Topic

Along with a new EP, Town Topic, of mostly instrumentals recently released, these DayTrotter sessions serve as a nice Casiotone fix until the next proper album is released. Considering that the last album, Etiquette, was released two years ago, hopefully a new full-length is on its way soon.

www.daytrotter.com/article/1055/casiotone-for-the-painfully-alone

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