rivulets, casiotone for the painfully alone @ Landlocked Music. 8p. $5.

Monday, April 16th @ 8pm @ Landlocked Music – $5 – All-Ages


Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (Tomlab)

Rivulets


Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is the musical alias of film school drop-out Owen Ashworth. Over his first few albums Ashworth defined a hybrid strain of raw, emotional, and very homemade synth pop that was instantly recognizable as his own – claustrophobic 2-minute character studies shuddered with reverbed beats, blown-out chords, and simple but infectous melodies, all layered beneath Ashworth’s sometimes funny but always heartbreaking lyrics. Now the sound of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone has grown to include pianos, organs, strings, flutes, drums, and pedal steel guitars in addition to Ashworth’s signature electronics and drum machines.

Nathan Amundson began Rivulets in 1999, when his debut was issued by Chair Kickers’ Union, the Duluth label run by Low. Often driven only by voice or quiet guitar, Rivulets was frighteningly gentle, yet genuinely powerful. The brooding love songs of Mark Kozelek’s Red House Painters were an apt comparison, as were the acute, windswept soundscapes of Iceland’s Sigur Ros. Most often, the music suggested the isolation and odd beauty found at the center of an iced-over lake in the middle of winter. On You Are My Home, Amundson is joined by the none too shabby musical guests Codeine’s Chris Brokaw, Jessica Bailiff, Christian Frederickson of Rachel’s, Boxhead Ensemble’s Fred Lonberg-Holm and Bob Weston of Shellac and Mission Of Burma. Their combined guitars, keyboards, strings and horns work together with Amundson’s heartbroken voice magically to create a deep dark melancholia.

MP3:
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Young Shields

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