Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
Answering Machine Music

THE REVIEW

A few years ago, I was wandering around a used record fair, thinking I had it all.
Let me explain: are you familiar with that obstinate presumption that sometimes grips collectors? Well, I was living in this dimension, strolling among the stalls, smiling to myself and seeing the faces of others who shuddered at the sight of the supposedly unfindable CD of this or the vinyl of that... "I've had it for two years already," I would declare.
I then approached a stall and saw "Answering Machine Music" by Casiotone For The Painfully Alone in the TomLab CD version, which appeared on their website under the label LP only!! To clarify, not the 2001 bonus-enriched edition, but the original from 1999. Sweating, an exclamation of joy, and purchase. A sigh of relief: I can still get excited.

This is how I came into possession of this small gem of the indie world, this record that paved the way for minimalism with a smile, a record considered monotonous due to the use of only a Casio keyboard for creating each track, but which is a hymn to creativity.

Not even half an hour of absolute lo-fi crafted by Owen Ashworth - a 1977 San Francisco boy who single-handedly oversees this project - with a personal pop spirit, homemade (literally) where he pairs his voice with scratches and noises from an early school party with old-school keyboards or drum machines mixed with the strangest electronic sounds.

Everything that many appreciated in CocoRosie or a certain spirit of the early albums of Smog and Bright Eyes, can be found in this record. The music of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in this album retains a brilliant, inspired, and at the same time, annoyed dimension. Disturbed by external intrusions, by the colors of the world outside, because our Ashworth is closed in his room, but unlike other artists who create within their four walls, he is serene and doesn’t hide discomfort (see Daniel Johnston for example) but an educated spirit of underground pop. A daisy made with cuttings from magazines.

This album is the manifesto of this spirit and in twelve tracks, there are many ideas, experimental electronic melodies, still leaving a slightly bittersweet aftertaste in many songs. Short, small indie sketches of fragile and proud beauty, like "Baby It's you" suspended in a gentle, moving distortion, or "Rice Dream Girl" that seems like the soundtrack of a party for a painfully uncool thirteenth birthday, where among all the guests, only the nerds and the less attractive girls of the class come. It's impossible not to mention "Cold Shoulder" where the uncertain progression of the song reveals a final idea worthy of old-time video games.. Each second is suspended between minimalism, pop, and colorful solitude.

So, returning home from that record fair, I put these songs in the car player and see myself as a child again, unkempt and pimply, but at the same time an ambitious and disenchanted adult, perhaps Owen Ashworth would have been my best friend if only I had been born in San Francisco too, if only the prettiest girl in class hadn't given me that kiss...