the echo and echoplex

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone || Listen

Like each of Owen Ashworth’s wondrous works before it, Etiquette is intimate, often sorrowful, bedroom glitch-pop, but here it is more substantial. The unified sound varies in style, showing a breadth of expression and a growing array of whiz-bang instrumentation.

Dialing the party line of Bowie and Gainsbourg on “New Year’s Kiss” will surely make the track a favorite for most, but some of the more impressive tracks sleep innocently until a narrative pang brings them to life. “I Love Creedence” is an unassuming favorite, whereas a brisk pace would normally contradict a track so heartbroken, it viscerally captures the speed of a stirred heart when seeing a past love on the street.

Ending on what might seem the album’s highest thematic note, “Love Connection”, we hear the loveliest song ever to have the word “menstrual” in it, but such candor serves a purpose. Even when achieving what the Painfully Alone have perpetually ached for, love comes with harsh, sensual reality and cynicism. Etiquette ends with a line repeated over and over: “Some things are best left unsaid.” As the phrase resonates in consciousness and spirit, we must realize Owen Ashcroft has already said it all and would do it all again. - Lost At Sea

with:
Foot Foot || Listen
Katy Davidson

8pm / $8 / All Ages