Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is the musical alias of 28 year old American film school drop-out Owen Ashworth. Ashworth began making music in 1997 after he realized that song-making was a far more cost-effective means of storytelling than film-making.

The first three Casiotone for the Painfully Alone albums were made using only battery operated keyboards and electronics recorded to 4-track cassette. With 1999's Answering Machine Music, 2001's Pocket Symphonies for Lonesome Subway Cars (now collected onto one CD), and 2003's Twinkle Echo, Ashworth defined a hybrid strain of raw, emotional, and very homemade synth pop that was instantly recognizable as his own. Claustrophobic two-minute character studies shuddered with reverbed beats, blown-out chords, and simple but infectous melodies, all layered beneath Ashworth's sometimes funny but always heartbreaking lyrics.