093: Advance Base - The Year I Lived In Richmond
"I've never lived in a place called Richmond," Advance Base's Owen Ashworth says in the written introduction to his new song 'The Year I Lived In Richmond'. For those of us already attuned to the small but wonderful worlds he creates in his songs, that dichotomy is nothing new. On his previous studio album, Animal Companionship, he crafted one of my personal favourite records of all time from a series of, often fictionalised, tales of, well, animal companionship.
Somehow - and I had to check, and check again - more than six years have passed since the release of that album, though Ashworth has stayed very much in the public consciousness; playing live, releasing a live album and covers collection, and releasing excellent music from other people via his label, Orindal Records.
Thankfully, with weary-hearted gusto, he returns in his Advance Base this winter with a brand new LP, called Horrible Occurrences and released on December 6th.
The aforementioned new track is quintessential Ashworth. The opening song of the forthcoming record, it's just a short ripple from the totemic character that has sat at the centre of his music through the Advance Base years, and in the time before that when he performed as Casiotone For The Painfully Alone.
So while he's never actually lived in Richmond, Ashworth goes on to the say that the song "describes my memories of a series of violent crimes that occurred in a city where I briefly lived in the early 2000's. I haven't been able to corroborate the events through internet searches or conversations with old friends from that period of my life. Maybe I dreamt up the whole thing? I really don't know."
As ever, the song drips with personality, quickly world-building with such efficiency that it's akin to suddenly finding yourself in a dream, surrounded by people and places already alive and waiting. Introduced by his signature, sorrow-laced key tones, the song is warm and hazy , unusual and vivid. So perfectly imperfect; a feeling you can't put a name to.
"Over time, the events became a kind of personal mystery, and then that mystery became a song," Owen continues in the song's foreword. "The song took on a life of its own, a fiction more vivid than my hazy memories, with its own specific details and invented names. I've been living with some version of this song in my head for more than twenty years now and it finally feels like the right time to share it with you."
Pre-orders for the LP are available Now
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