5/25

$12

Advance Base is the melancholic soft rock recording project of Chicago, IL singer/songwriter Owen Ashworth (formerly of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone). Using a two-handed arsenal of electric piano, Omnichord, samplers, effect pedals & drum machines, Ashworth builds minimalist, heavy-hearted, & nostalgia-obsessed ballads around his conversational baritone. The warm, electronic sound of Advance Base has been described as "lo-fi," "depressed" & "weirdly uplifting."

'Brilliant new album from Village of Spaces, a combo once described as, “Dan and his raggletaggle band of hippies” by Michael Hurley, a guy who knows about such things. The Dan in question is Dan Beckman-Moon who, along with his partner Amy Moon Offerman-Sims, is the central core of this constantly evolving, psychedelically inclined, folk juggernaut.V.O.S. has had many name variations and members in the 17 years since Dan and Amy formed this more perfect union, but all of their recordings are possessed of a singular sense of rurality and otherness. They've been based everywhere from Santa Cruz to New Orleans to Belfast (Maine), and this album was recorded in expectedly nomadic fashion. Using various players and rooms from their network of collusionists, Shaped by Place offers a smoother ride than some of its predecessors.The two covers they do of songs by Gordon Bok (the legendary Maine folksinger/woodworker who was Dan's mentor when he was coming up) have a very sweet traditional swing.