Owen Ashworth, who makes music as Advance Base, has long been a standard-bearer for Christmas music in indie pop. He started writing the occasional Christmas-themed song with his former project Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in the 2000s. With Advance Base, which he launched in the early 2010s, he’s blossomed his love of Christmas music into a Chicagoland concert tradition that’s lasted nearly a decade—during the first part of the COVID pandemic, he switched to YouTube broadcasts. Ashworth’s original Christmas songs often emphasize the loneliness of the holiday season and the pain of disconnection. On “Christmas in Nightmare City,” a newly sober narrator struggles through a dry holiday; on Casiotone’s “Cold White Christmas,” a young adult navigates the complexities of family estrangement.
This Color Club concert stands out from Ashworth’s typical holiday fare because it’s also the record-release show for the first Advance Base studio album in six years, Horrible Occurrences (Run for Cover). Ashworth has an unerring ability to capture life’s fleeting but defining moments, and on Horrible Occurrences he’s in rare form as he explores the interconnected lives of the people of a fictional city called Richmond. It’s a town that’s faced plenty of tribulations—a serial killer, paralyzing skateboard accidents, strange disappearances—and darkness haunts even the album’s brief glimpses of beauty and connection, which include safe returns home from the local liquor store and in-jokes about shoplifting tampons.
Ashworth’s vivid storytelling is underscored by his trademark synths, which move between horror-movie ominous and subtly angelic. Even his newest Christmas song is caught in this tension. In “The One About the Rabbit in the Snow,” a bartender walks home during a snowstorm, guided by a memory of Christmas lights—but it’s not quite clear if they ever arrive. As the dread creeps in, the narrator keeps singing to themself, which feels like a beautiful encapsulation of Advance Base’s MO. This world can be a tragic place, but as long as we have music, we have something to hold the darkness at bay a little while longer.
Advance Base Karima Walker opens. Fri 12/20, 8 PM, Color Club, 4146 N. Elston, $18.54, 18+