Owen Ashworth covers comp released ft. Pedro the Lion, Friendship, Wednesday & more

Today is Owen Ashworth‘s (Advance Base, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone) birthday, and for the occasion, 26 of Owen’s talented friends have surprised him with a covers album of his own material. You Were Alone: An Owen Ashworth Almanac is out now on Bandcamp via Dear Life Records, with all proceeds going to Beyond Hunger in Oak Park, IL, and it features covers by Pedro the Lion, Friendship, Sinai Vessel, MJ Lenderman & Karly Hartzman (of Wednesday), Dear Nora, Matt Bachmann, Serengeti, Lisa/Liza, Karima Walker, Nicholas Krgovich, Claire Cronin, Karl Blau, Mike Adams At His Honest Weight, Gordon Ashworth, and more. Dan Wriggins of Friendship (who just announced their signing to Merge earlier this week) writes:

No songwriter alive tells stories like Owen Ashworth. Every song is a world, every word is essential, and every character has something gnawing at them. I tried to count the LPs, EPs, live albums, cover albums, mixtapes, and singles that Owen has released so far, first as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and currently as Advance Base, and had to give up. In summary, there’s a lot, it’s good, and it keeps getting better.

In addition to writing incredible music, Owen loves a karaoke cover. We decided to get him good by recording a few covers of his. Immense thanks to all the artists who sent songs in. Everybody killed it. Compiling this album was pretty easy — lucky for me, Owen’s got tons of beautiful songs, and tons of friends who love him.

Happy birthday, Owen.

Stream the comp in full: