Advance Base - Plastic Owen Band (Orindal, 2014)

(Full Name: Plastic Owen Band: Collected Covers, Compilation Tracks, Demos & Rarities 2011-2014 mixtape)

This is the most recent covers album Owen Ashworth has put out under the Advance Base moniker. The previous albums were shorter EPs usually focusing on a single artist, like his Tomorrows Houses Today EP which covered every song on Stephin Merrit's House of Tomorrow EP. This album is a full length focusing on traditional acts that lean more to the folk and country side of classic rock, like neil young, kris kristofferson, bill withers, Creedance Cleerwater. But the two strongest tracks are actually Owen Ashworth covers - Riot Grrls and Natural Light. Ashworth wisely reinterprets "Lodi" - originally an uptempo and heroic sounding Cleerwater track, as downtempo and melancholy. Appropriate, since the lyrics are regretful and detail a failed attempt at seeking fame and fortune. Ashworth's cover of Kristofferson's circular, illogical, homespun advice song "To Beat The Devil" is a fine addition. His cover of Philadelphia comes from a place deep and broken, Ashworth practically mumbles over xylophones and choral falsetto effects that chime in near the end of the soft, painful track. "Motion Juice", a slightly more upbeat track is a new song intended for a DC Pierson young adult novel titled Crap Kingdom. Riot Grrls is a a slower and much more low-fi version of a song from Shut In's Prayer, stripped to nothing but a drum machine and synth. The song, about a middle aged gen x-er reminiscing about liberal arts college friends in the 90s, is a sad and wistful and and accomplished a piece of storytelling on any CFTPA album. Like many CFTPA/Advance Base songs, it's a melancholy song about longing that simultaneously does not mince words when talking about the misery, toxicity, and privelege of twenty something artists, while not condemning the same. The song "Natural Light", a cover of a CFTPA cover of a Mark Kozalek song might be the strongest and most puzzling track. Owen sings the track with a kind of southern old man affect that just barely works but makes the song, about longing and nostalgia and regret provoked by glimpsing an old photograph, all the more sad. The LP closes out with the Julie Byrne assisted "Summer Music" - Byrne showed up on previous Ashworth song "Holly Hobby", and a lighthearted instrumental track titled Harpsichord.