ADVANCE BASE

animal Companionship RUN FOR COVER 7/10 Tragicomic indie balladeer muses on four-legged friends

Since hearing problems forced him to wind up his former band Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Owen Ashworth has concentrated on running his own Chicago-based indie label while sporadically recording lo-fi analogue keyboard ballads under his new musical alias Advance Base. Inspired by the close bonds that humans develop with their pets, Animal Companionship is a more sombre affair than it initially sounds as Ashworth uses animal love as a lens through which to dissect heartbreak and loss, broken lives and creeping mortality. Standout tracks include the synth-saturated Spector-ish weepie “True Love Death Dream” and the careworn late-night confessional “Christmas In Nightmare City”, which has some of the ragged tenderness of classic Tom Waits.