Horrible Occurrences

Horrible Occurrences is Owen Ashworths first album of original material since 2018s Animal Companionship; a home-recorded pandemic live record and a collection of covers appeared during the interim. All of the songs on Horrible Occurrences take place in a fictional town called Richmond, though Ashworth hints that its somewhere in the Midwestern United States, and some of the albums lyrics are based on hazy memories of experiences he had living in a similar town ages ago. Recorded entirely by Ashworth alone in his basement studio using keyboards, samplers, synths, and drum machines, the album is filled with sparsely arranged yet vividly detailed narratives describing tragedies and other strange, unfortunate events. Despite the albums title, Ashworth approaches his subjects with empathy, and never sounds like hes trying to shock the listener. Sounding somewhat like the musical equivalent of a Twin Peaks-influenced dramatic indie film, laced with very subtle black humor, about a remote, backwoods settlement that seems like it must be haunted, the album is filled with specific, believable stories delivered in Ashworths familiar, weathered croak. The glowing keyboards and stark, wintry atmospheres might prompt comparisons to later Nick Cave works like Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen, but these songs can be relatively, perhaps deceptively, upbeat at times. The self-defensive murder tale of opener "The Year I Lived in Richmond" is accompanied by warm, sparkling Rhodes melodies and punctuated by Springsteen-like whoops, while the concluding "Richmond" is an "Everybody Hurts"-like waltz with a vocal cadence that basically resembles "On Top of Old Smoky." In between these two bookends, theres a story about a portrait hanging on a wall, a reflection of a Christmas Eve eve when a touring band canceled a gig at a bar on account of snow, and a verse (titled "The Tooth Fairy") about a child who panics when her father quickly leaves home in order to break a 20 dollar bill so he can place a dollar under her pillow after she lost a tooth. Theres also the bleak and poignant "Brians Golden Hour," about a 15-year-old skater who gets in an accident that leaves him paralyzed, and "Little Sable Point Lighthouse," about returning to a site previously visited on a vacation in Michigan. The solo arrangements of Horrible Occurrences recall the lo-fi simplicity of Ashworths early work as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, but it has the weathered experience of his other Advance Base releases, and while it can feel a bit dry at times, it shows that Ashworths songwriting is as strong and affecting as ever. ~ Paul Simpson