3.0 out of 5 stars
You don't love me anymore, March 24, 2007
This review is from: Answering Machine Music (Audio CD)
I first encountered Casiotone For the Painfully Alone right after a nasty breakup, and the name of the band attracted me.
Basically it's what it sounds like -- rippling, twipping, skipping and clashing electronica, with lyrics about lonely souls and unfulfilled loves, ie the "painfully alone." Owen Ashworth's first album "Answering Machine Music: A Brief Album in Twelve Parts" is unpolished compared to his later work, but still a sweet, snappy piece of work.
It opens with a few keyboard chimes and some hesitant beats, as if Ashworth is chronicling his first musical steps. Then it opens into "When the Bridge Toll Was One Dollar," a clashing mix of thrashy electronic beats and smoothly sensual melody. It's nice for a minute or so, but I was starting to get a headache.
Ashworth has more luck in the songs that follow -- primarily it falls into two categories, those of warm little glitchpop, and misty ballads with some angular beats laid over them. About halfway through, Ashworth tries out some other styles, such as the buzzing electronic wall-o'-sound, and smoothing out the beats into an undulating little mass of electropoppiness.
Oh, and just because I want to mention it: the shimmery rattly "A Normal Suburban Lifestyle is a Near Impossibility Once You've Fallen in Love with an International Spy." Isn't that a great title?
"Answering Machine Music: A Brief Album in Twelve Parts" did do the trick of lifting my spirits, with Ashworth's bittersweet view of love and the world. By the time he had sung, "And we've all but lost our chance/for a summertime romance," I wasn't feeling particularly unhappy anymore.
But the album does have some flaws -- the songs are a bit too rough and a bit repetitive, and often it sounds like a musician getting acquainted with the music he's trying to spin. However, he does gain a great deal of skill in the second half of the album, which contains little bittersweet melodies entirely made from electronic instruments -- chimey, sparkly, sharp and shimmering all mushed together.
Ashworth does his own vocals for this, ranging from a sort of Jeff-Mangumy murmur in the background to a slightly nasal folky-sound. And his adorable lyrics are almost exclusively concerned with missing out on love, and the universal sorrow of trying to express unrequited love. "And I don't understand/why we stopped holding hands/I know it's cold outside/but do you have to/wear mittens all the time?"
"Answering Machine Music: A Brief Album in Twelve Parts" is a flawed but memorable little debut, and the rough form of Casiotone For the Painfully Alone's later beautiful work.
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