One Better Than Emo

There's an unwritten rule amongst devotees of the emo: the more words in your title the better. Four is a good number: Planes Mistaken For Stars, Death Cab For Cutie, et cetera ad hoc; three if you're less picky about what you listen to: Jimmy Eat World maybe, or Coheed & Cambria.

Owen Ashworth goes one better, at the same time avoiding being your standard emo kid by a fair extent. He goes by the wonderful moniker Casiotone For The Painfully Alone totalling five (count 'em) words. So that's either uber-emo or some sort of new strain, a mutation if you will. And so, CFTPA (as he will henceforth be known).

Website: http://www.cftpa.org/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/cftpa
Live Journal: http://cftpaforever.livejournal.com/
(This guy clearly has his internet head screwed on)

Ashworth started out literally just on a battery-powered keyboard (in these days of rechargable iPods and such gizmos, no-one gives due attention to the humble battery these days. The wee aliens in *batteries not included must be turning in their graves, presuming they're dead by now). This year's Etiquette broadens the pallette substantially and is lovely , still rooted in the reverb-beat-y electro but with warmth; humanity; a bit of life about it. Distinguishable vocals, for a start, which lifts it out of comparisons with allegedly more cerebral artists, and puts Ashforth out of competition with anyone. Because there's no obvious comparisons - in fact, listening to the music makes you think that even if there were, what's the point in a comparison? Why bother rating somebody above another? Just listen to the damn music and enjoy it.

CFTPA's new record came out today on Tomlab, a label he shares with such luminaries as Final Fantasy, Patrick Wolf, and the Books (beloved of here). I advise you buy it.

In the meantime, listen at Betty's jukebox.
Cold White Christmas
Bobby Malone Moves Home