Casiotone For the Painfully Alone

Fri., April 6, 8 p.m., all ages, with Xiu Xiu and Shearwater, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St.

by Brian Howard

indie/electronic

Yes, this is a music pick, but think of film-school dropout Owen Ashworth, Casiotone For the Painfully Alone's main brain, as a sketch artist. On his fourth battery-powered album, last year's Etiquette (Tomlab), Ashworth presents more character portraits of tortured souls soldiering on in the face of such devastating forces as heartbreak, crushing expectations and ennui. Sure, Ashworth's heroes are hardly heroic — vaguely sympathetic "victims" of modern society, they — but don't hate them: They're just written that way. What makes Ashworth's subjects endearing is that we all sort of know (or are) these people: the girl piecing things together the next morning ("New Year's Kiss"); the spoiled trust-fund babies running from responsibility ("Young Shields"); the guy who tried big and failed bigger ("Bobby Malone Moves Home"). Or maybe we actually do know them: The characters in "I Love Creedence" "moved together out to Philly after college/ took a two-bedroom at South and 9th" until the girl "met a boy from New Jersey" and everything went to hell. It's so true it's eerie.

Fri., April 6, 8 p.m., all ages, $10, with Xiu Xiu and Shearwater, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., www.r5productions.com.