Casiotone for the Painfully Alone: "Goodbye Parthernon"

Four months ago, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone made his most shattering declaration to date: he’s bowing out. Yes, Owen Ashworth, king of character-acted vignettes of despair set to malfunctioning keyboard beats—and champion to anyone who’s ever rented a bedsit—is finally hanging his boots up, and moving on to pastures new. Casio listeners in bedsit land would probably be attempting suicide by now if they weren’t too scared to venture out and buy rope, but Ashworth has always has always reached out to his fans, not least by immortalising each of their archetypes in his tales of romantic devastation. For his farewell single he’s got a special treat lined up: he’s saying adieu to a whole batch of them with a split on One Inch Badge, sharing honours with the likes of Nullifier, Future Islands, and WHY?. Devotees at his Brighton gig have got this on wax already. The rest of us have to wait until spring next year, and fight back the urge to tie nooses.

Hardcore Casiotone fans will be pleased to hear that “Goodbye Parthernon” sees Ashworth returning to the crunchy electrics of his mixtapes, the ones he recorded ten years ago that he eventually named himself after. Over a juddering Roland melody, he likens the retiring of his moniker to a poignant but small-town suicide, one which begins in the replica columns of Tennessee’s version of Athens. “Lifted scissors from the pharmacist / Leave at once and take them to my wrist / Owen, if these evil thoughts persist / I can only hope I won’t be missed.” Bret Easton Ellis would approve of these games with his ego/slasher scenes, and as the fictional Ashworth catches a train and watches street signs blur into countryside, he reels off a series of goodbyes—one for each of the people in Nashville who ever bothered to speak to him. This takes all of three minutes, but the frantic ’80s pop hooks he’s devised get under your skin, causing you to hang on his words. And when you consider this is the swansong of the noughties’ most heartfelt songwriter, perhaps you’ll hang a little tighter. RIP CFTPA. I’ve never crossed the Atlantic before but I feel like you’ve been my roommate. Even though I live alone. In a bedsit. With a keyboard. The end.