Advance Base

Under the name Advance Base, Owen Ashworth has been pursuing since 2012 a songwriter practice he began in the late 1990s with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, a project started in San Francisco before he moved to Chicago. Advance Base belongs to an indie-pop lo-fi tradition with highly narrative songwriting, where folk, restrained slowcore, minimal pop and chamber-like songs intersect; the tracks focus on everyday details, fragile relationships, small urban communities and characters who are often withdrawn. The shift to Advance Base represents continuity more than rupture: arrangements remain spare, tempos measured, but the whole gains in scope and clarity while retaining a domestic, melancholic aesthetic. Advance Base released 'A Shut-In's Prayer' in 2012, 'Nephew in the Wild' in 2015 and 'Animal Companionship' in 2018 — three albums that extend this attentive writing about places, ordinary voices and precarious lives. On stage Advance Base operates within DIY, indie rock and singer-songwriter circuits, with an intentionally intimate approach that places narrative, melody and Owen Ashworth's presence at the center.