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.”
The debut Advance Base* album, A Shut-In’s Prayer, was released in 2012, & was one of MOJO Magazine’s favorite albums of the year. PopMatters named Nephew in the Wild the #1 Indie Pop Album of 2015. Animal Companionship, the third album, was released September 21, 2018, by Run For Cover Records / Orindal Records. GoldFlakePaint & Various Small Flames both listed Animal Companionship among their favorite albums of 2018. Advance Base’s newest album, Horrible Occurrences, was Stereogum’s Album of the Week.
*Named for the Antarctic meteorological station & psychedelic death trap that nearly killed Admiral Richard E. Byrd during the winter of 1934.