Etiquette, literate plastic keyboard maestro Owen Ashworth's fourth release under the moniker Casiotone for the Painfully Alone introduced non-bedroom production into the mix, utilizing guest vocalists, strings, woodwinds, pedal steel guitars, and various synthesizers and drum machines from other companies into what was once a simple recipe. What sounds like a major overhaul on the album jacket is less so when applied to the 12 tracks that fill Etiquette's exoskeleton with meat. Fans who swooned over Ashworth's previous collections of snide, affecting, and consistently heartbroken pop songs will find that he's only taken the first step up from lo-fi, with at least half of the songs still residing in the thin, insular confines of four-track distortion filtered through corner store six-packs. That's not to say that songs like "I Love Creedence," "Cold White Christmas," and the Steve Merritt-channeling-David Bowie's-"Five Years'" grandeur of "New Year's Kiss" don't resonate on a sonic level as well as an emotional one. In fact, those three, along with the jazzy "Bobby Malone Moves Home" and the hesitant "Nashville Parthenon" may be some of his finest works, but the inclusion of guest vocalists Sam Mickens, Jenn Herbinson, and Katy Davidson -- the latter leads four songs -- all of whom have lovely and expressive voices, keeps Etiquette from engaging on the kind of one-on-one basis that made Pocket Symphonies for Lonely Subway Cars and Twinkle Echo such selfish pleasures.
*some sort of miracle seems to have happened.*there doesn't seem to be any christmas music anywhere within hearing distance of my cubicle.today is a good day.my best friend and i were on the phone today for ..well, hours, and we were talking about music, as we are absolutely bound to do in every conversation - neither of us is really friends with anyone in our respective cities who's really INT...
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The last thing one wants after the fact is too much information. So goes a song that illustrates by example the lesson it preaches in the end (way down below).Chapped lips. Tongue, kissed.[Insert expletive] fluids of a summer night.With slight duress, forced imperativesfind me quoting Pennington.A delicate blend of sweat and menstrual bloodseeping into trampled grass.On one hand, the original b...
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**The walk of shame** refers to any phenomenon in which a person has to take a walk in front of strangers (In some cases the roomates of the person she or he slept with.) or peers for an embarrassing reason before reaching a place of privacy. Most commonly, it occurs the morning after a night out at a bar, dance club, or party. People undertaking the walk of shame are understood to have spent t...
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*some sort of miracle seems to have happened.*there doesn't seem to be any christmas music anywhere within hearing distance of my cubicle.today is a good day.my best friend and i were on the phone today for ..well, hours, and we were talking about music, as we are absolutely bound to do in every conversation - neither of us is really friends with anyone in our respective cities who's really INT...
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All this Casiotone talk makes me seem obsessed, and frankly I currently am. My predicament is this: what with school ending for the summer, hating where I live, and having a low likelihood of getting into any colleges I actually want to go to, living as this song describes is getting very attractive. I am not being sarcastic. If I abandon the conventional route now, I can:-be invincible & bound...
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 "Etiquette")
