Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (CFTPA) is that band for me. I’ve been listening to them for years, and Owen Ashworth’s music has lent a soundtrack to some pivotal moments in my life. I’ve pined over an unobtainable crush to the sounds of Answering Machine Music, put tracks from Pocket Symphonies for Lonesome Subway Cars on mix tapes for close friends, rediscovered my first love to the sounds of Twinkle Echo, and Etiquette helped me get through some tough times as well. That puts a lot of pressure on Ashworth with his fifth proper full-length release, Vs. Children, to deliver some tunes that will simultaneously soothe and disturb me like everything else from his previous catalog.
I am growing up. Suitably enough, Ashworth is, too. For this record, CFTPA traded in the vintage keyboards for a more sophisticated musical palette of organs, real pianos, a Mellotron, and acoustic percussion. His vocals are still deeply distorted and buried for most of the record, giving the album a sweeping, romantic feel that is characterized by longing, if not hope.
Vs. Children follows a theme of crime, as heard in the second track, “Tom Justice, The Choir Boy Robber, Apprehended at Ace Hardware In Libertyville, IL.” The track is a mellow toe-tapper, featuring a booming, distorted bass drum beat. The lyrics describe the story of a boy who robbed 26 banks, with lyrics that are narrative in nature: “Took the money and you fled / Counted months ‘til they found you / They had your bike, they were bound to.”
It also focuses a lot on family and, as the title suggests, children and parent/child relationships. The song “Killers” is a particularly poignant track about, strangely enough, family planning. Ashworth mutters over tambourine and claves, “You know I meant what I said, I think you’ll be a good mother / But honey look at us now, we barely support each other.”
The album is finely ended by the ultra-twinkly and chill track, “White Jetta,” slathered in sleigh-bells and xylophone. The lyrical content is somewhat of an autobiography of sorts for Ashworth, strangely confessional about his private life, discussing growing up and even his mother’s illness. The track definitely hits home with lyrics that are pretty universal, about the strange experience of growing up and the fear of leaving behind teenage abandonment—“I’ve had this little car since I was 17 / The tape is busted, got a boom box in the back seat / Been blasting Misfits all up and down these streets / To stay the same / To never change.”
Vs. Children is exactly what I’d hoped for. Though I slightly miss the namesake Casiotone keyboards, Ashcroft’s growth as a musician is apparent, and his songwriting has come full-circle with songs that ignite more feeling than “Rice Dream Girl” ever could. While it doesn’t strike the same chords as his earlier stuff, I think it’s only a matter of time before it does.
