| | Casiotone For The Painfully Alo Etiquette CD - Import Casiotone For The Painfully Alo Discography of CDs
 (2 Customer Reviews)
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. ~ James Christopher Monger
Personnel: Owen Ashworth (vocals, piano, electric piano, organ, electronics); Karen Mitchell (flute); Jason Quever (drums).
Mojo (Publisher) (p.102) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "This fourth album expands Casiotone For The Painfully Alone's frighteningly austere template to an almost symphonic level of opulence." Casiotone For The Painfully Alo Etiquette Songs | 1. | Etiquette I.D. |
| 2. | New Year's Kiss |
| 3. | Young Shields |
| 4. | I Love Creedence |
| 5. | Nashville Parthenon |
| 6. | Scattered Pearls |
| 7. | Happy Mother's Day |
| 8. | Holly Hobby |
| 9. | Cold White Christmas |
| 10. | Bobby Malone Moves Home |
| 11. | Don't They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night |
| 12. | Love Connection |
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Etiquette Music Review Average Rating: (3 out of 5 stars)  nintendo beats with melodies on nightquil
filled with plenty electronic beats that most gamers will find nostalgic, yet fresh, with a mix of heavy sounds in hiphop fashion and soft, indie rock and roll, a unique sound is formed, not least of which is the male singer's seemingly cold-flu induced voice. a change of pace that's worth listening for those with an already experienced ear in the indie world, you'll add a little bit more with casiotone for the painfully alone.
Submitted by dahpaper (houston, tx, usa) 
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No Surely deserving of 5 stars
A very exceltional indietronica album. For fans of IDM (intelligent dance music) and groups such as Postal Service, Lali Puna, Hot Chip, and almost any indie/electronica. Interesting lyrics, developed beats, and Ashworth's unique voice make this worth checking out. Highly recommended!
Submitted by mangledcougar (San Diego, CA, USA)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No | Have you heard this album? |  |
Purchase Etiquette CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Matt Pond PA Nature Of Maps CD (2002)
Etiquette
 $10.39 
This opus by matt pond PA is the band's second for Polyvinyl Records. Entitled The Nature of Maps, it contains 12 songs and clocks in at about 38 minutes. Matt Pond has a recognizable voice, one that is no doubt capable of surviving, if not flourishing, on "alternative" radio. In many aspects, Pond and company aren't too far removed from the full sound of, say, Jackson Browne or modern-day comrades Koufax. Tunes like "Close Map" declare a liking for rich textures, filled with strings and jolly upbeats on guitar and drums. Other tunes showcase a more morose attitude, yet the strings are still prevalent, as are other backing instruments including vibraphone, keyboards, piano, and banjo. At times the album comes off as quite triumphant, yet never self-righteous. On other occasions it is in the delicacy that the whispering instruments prove that Pond's formula for what some may think as an archaic sound is actually noble and relevant. These 12 tracks are compositions to the ...
| | Minus 5 I Don't Know Who I Am CD (2003) Let The War Against Music
Etiquette
$13.85
Although Scott McCaughey pays his bills as a loyal R.E.M. sideman, the longtime Young Fresh Fellows frontman's Minus 5 project has allowed him to explore his fundamental pop/rock leanings with colleague Peter Buck on albums like 2001's acclaimed Let the War Against Music Begin. Recorded in tandem with that set, I Don't Know Who I Am -- a limited-edition disc reportedly restricted to a pressing of just 2,000 copies -- is far darker and more experimental, as evidenced by the set launcher, "There Is No Music." Meshing a slide guitar with a brooding lo-fi feel, the song's alt-country leanings uneasily shift into the electronic-tinged "Myrna Loy." While there are contagious moments like "Rooting for the Plague" and the profane singalong "I Don't Want to Fuck Off Anymore," tunes like the heady "Disaster Nurse Fang" and "Dear Employer" (which is recycled but drastically stripped-down from its appearance on 2003's Down With Wilco and again boasts Jeff Tweedy) are as off-kilter as these alternative pop luminaries are likely to get. I Don't Know Who ...
| | Rilo Kiley More Adventurous CD (2004)
Etiquette
$9.99  
Mellotron and Moog add a melancholy air to the heartbreak-defining "Does He Love You?," and "I Never" hints at Rilo Kiley's country side via Lewis's aching, Loretta Lynn-like phrasing and the atmospheric blending of strings and pedal steel. This adventurous musical outing leaves room for Blake Sennett's lo-fi, solo acoustic tune "Ripchord," the Blondie-esque "Portions for Foxes," and "Love and War (11/11/46)," a New Wave-like rocker inspired by Lewis's visit to her grandfather in a VA hospital.
Much ...
| | Comas Conductor CDs (2004)
Etiquette
$9.15 
Voted one of the best 2004 albums you didn't hear from both Spin and Rolling Stone, the third release from this Chapel Hill, NC, combo revels in its gloomy indie pop roots. Fuzzed-out guitars mesh with soaring, edgy melodies on a song cycle exploring the collapsed relationship between Comas auteur Andy Herod and TV star Michelle Williams. But you'd probably only know that from reading the press kit, since Herod's lyrics are typically obtuse. Still, there is no mistaking the self-pity wallowing in songs like "Hologram," with lyrics such as "Every time I think of a zero it's me with my eyes X-ed out with a sharpie and frown." The disc kicks off with plenty of sludgy pop hooks roughed up by unfussy production, but gradually morphs into a more internally wracked affair. The sum of these songs equals more than their melancholy parts, and the album works on its own logic. That includes the bizarre three-and-half-minute single organ note that opens "Falling," the closing song. Bits of The Man Who Sold the World-era David Bowie float through this world, but Herod isn't mimicking anything as much as crafting his own style. The singer/songwriter's careening voice conveys the sadness, ...
| | Arcade Fire Funeral CD (2004)
Etiquette
$12.05 
This Montreal ensemble's fiery debut is marked by surging guitars, soulful strings, driving drums, brilliant bass lines, and the quavering vocals of married couple Win Butler and Regine Chassagne. The group's song structures careen through a vast territory of musical and personal history, with lyrics warm with memories of childhood neighborhoods and deceased loved ones, resulting in an alternating current of joy and sadness.
Favorably compared to the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, and Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire's sound seems ...
| | Headlights Some Racing, Some Stopping CD (2008)
Etiquette
$9.95
| | Let's Go Trippin' CD (1996) (Import) United Kingdom
Etiquette
$20.39
Thirty surf and hot rod tracks that were released on or distributed by the Dot label in the 1960s; a couple (the Surfaris' "Wipe Out" and the Chantays' "Pipeline") were huge hits, but most of the rest were virtually unknown. It's a grab ...
| | R E M Life's Rich Pageant CD (1986)
Etiquette
$8.85
| | Guano Apes Don't Give Me Names CD (2000) (Import) Germany
Etiquette
$10.05
| | Vega 4 Satellites CD (2003) (Import) Bonus Track; Japan
Etiquette
$39.49
| | Lawrence Arms Cocktails And Dreams CD (2005)
Etiquette
$9.95
A handy 19-track compilation of B-sides, stray contributions to compilations and split EPs, and live recordings, with three new recordings rounding things out, Cocktails & Dreams is both a boon for longtime fans and a perfectly fine introduction to the Chicago pop/rockers for the uninitiated. Unlike a lot of bands, the Lawrence ...
| | Caitlin Cary Begonias CD (2005) Digipak
Etiquette
$13.69
While Caitlin Cary's solo albums have made it abundantly clear she can make splendid music by her lonesome, there's no arguing that she collaborates very well indeed, as her work with Whiskeytown and Tres Chicas has proven. For Begonias, Cary teamed up with another gifted singer/songwriter, her friend Thad Cockrell, and the two mesh beautifully on these sessions. Cockrell's voice bears a slight resemblance ...
| | Upper Crust Cream Of The Crust CD (2006) Digipak
Etiquette
$12.65
| | Adel Elmas Yijilak Yom CD (2007)
Etiquette
$15.15
| | Dub Colossus Town Called Addis CD (2008)
Etiquette
$14.35
When Nick Page) (aka Dubulah, a charter member of the legendary worldbeat ensemble Transglobal Underground), spent a summer in Addis Ababa, he quite unsurprisingly ended up in the studio with a revolving cast of local singers and instrumentalists. The result of that month-long experiment was this utterly entrancing album, a bubbling stew of reggae, dub, Azmari singing, traditional instruments, and rich horn charts (courtesy of the Horns of Negus). At times the musical fusion recalls some of Bill Laswell's work, especially the dark and dreamy arrangements ...
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