Originally released in 2006 on Germany’s Tomlab, Etiquette finds Chicago songwriter Owen Ashworth pushing Casiotone for the Painfully Alone beyond its four-track, mini-keyboard beginnings. The 2018 remaster, issued through Ashworth’s Orindal Records, is full of pianos, organs, strings, flute, pedal steel, live drums, drum machines and synthesizers, though it never loses the plainspoken loneliness at the centre of his songs. “Young Shields” leans into dark synthpop, “Bobby Malone Moves Home” has a classic-rock lift, and “Nashville Parthenon” turns country instrumentation into a torch song. It’s a strange mix, but the arrangements hold together.
Ashworth brings in several voices to make the characters feel less like thinly disguised autobiography. Jenn Herbinson sings “Scattered Pearls” and the Parenthetical Girls cover “Love Connection,” Katy Davidson leads “Holly Hobby,” and Sam Mickens handles “Happy Mother’s Day.” Jason Quever and Jherek Bischoff helped produce the album, with Quever also recording the pedal steel on “I Love Creedence.” The stark piano and vocal setting of “Don’t They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night” may be the clearest entry point for anyone drawn to intimate singer-songwriter music, while the two added tracks, “White Corolla (Version)” and “White on White,” give the remaster a little extra shape. Matthew Barnhart handled the remastering.
