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An unpredictable and dramatic "big band song cycle about science and information", Everything/Everything is a new departure for Simon Bookish, being his first album for TOMLAB. Additionally, whilst previous Simon Bookish releases have been informed by the sounds of digital synthesizers, Everything/Everything does away with them entirely to focus on live instruments. Scored for an ensemble dominated by saxophones, brass, piano, harp and Farfisa organ, it features luminaries from both the jazz and experimental classical music scenes.

Whilst this is almost certainly his most pop-oriented release to date, Everything/Everything, as it's name suggests, finds room for moments of racing Philip Glass minimalism, lop-sided disco, expressionist cabaret, and even an eery ambient interlude. Lyrically, the album's concept is "the flood of information" in our modern age, taking in chemistry and ecology, language and art, sometimes surreal, sometimes humourous, sometimes provocative, a weird blur of fact and fiction, delivered in Bookish's distinctive English-eccentric vocal.

It's only natural that Simon Bookish would want to tackle this chaos of stuff, since 'Simon Bookish' is the pseudonym of London-based composer Leo Chadburn, whose diverse recent work has included everything from sound-art installations in Bregenz, Austria, improvisation and guest spots with Leafcutter John and Polar Bear's Seb Rochford, and computer music for contemporary dance at the Royal Opera House to an acclaimed appearance with the National Theatre as "The Singer" in Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle".

Hot on the heels of the recently released singles and rarities compilation ?Advance Base Battery life" comes Vs. Children, the fifth album proper by Casiotone For The Painfully Alone. Vs. Children continues the trajectory of 2006's "Etiquette", which showed singer/songwriter Owen Ashworth straying from the strictly electronic instrumentation of his earlier recordings.

The "Town Topic" EP is the soundtrack to video artist and photographer Laurel Nakadate's debut feature film, "Stay The Same Never Change." Laurel commissioned CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE'S Owen Ashworth to proved all of the music for "Stay The Same Never Change", right down to the character's ring tones. The "Town Topic" EP consists of thirteen short instrumental pieces, book-ended by tow vocal tracks that were recorded specifically for the film. This EP also collects tracks from two limited, vinyl-only EPs (the "Town Topic" 7", released by OIB Records in Brighton, England, and STSNC Instrumentals 7", released by People In A Position To Know Recordings, Inc. in Olympia, WA), plus one bonus track, the previously unreleased "Lesley Gore on the Tami Show (instrumental)."

From Kraftwerk to Leonard Cohen, The Smiths to Suicide, and Pet Shop Boys to Smog, Chicago's one-man musical army Owen Ashworth ? a.k.a Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - has been bracketed with all manner of illustrious names in the course of his eleven year career. But in collecting the 7-inch split-singles and compilation tracks he released from 2004-7 (all but two of them on CD for the first time), Advance Base Battery Life provides compelling evidence of the singular nature of this industrious film-school dropout's talent.