Broken relationships and meandering days of nothing

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Advance Base Battery Life | 3/5

Advance Base Battery Life is a collection of singles, covers and collaborations from Owen Ashworth otherwise known as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. His music has been described as lo-fi electro-indie and lo is definitely how this reviewer felt after listening to it for the first time.

But put it on repeat and it starts to infiltrate your mind. The music is stripped bare of, well, anything at all. Owen obviously got a casiotone keyboard for Christmas and never quite got over it.

His songs are the stories of broken relationships and meandering days of nothing, told with self-deprecating humour.

His choice of cover songs is a little strange, ranging from Hot Boyz by Missy Elliot to Streets of Philadelphia and Born In The USA by Bruce Springsteen but they work.

If you shirk at the word indie then avoid this album like the plague. However if you’re willing to put work into your music then this could be the slow burner you’re looking for.