Advance Base recently announced his new album, Horrible Occurrences, ahead of the album’s release Owen Ashworth’s beloved and long-running project is back with the LP’s new single “Brian’s Golden Hour.” Due out December 6th via Run For Cover Records, Horrible Occurrences marks the first full-length of Advance Base originals since 2018’s Animal Companionship. Horrible Occurrences is a concept album set in the fictional town of Richmond, which Ashworth describes as a “place where all the bad memories live. Advance Base also has a run of North American tour dates lined up in December, including a just announced record release show in Chicago.

Recorded in Ashworth’s home studio, Horrible Occurrences is sparse and intimate, drawing you in with soft keyboard textures and leaving plenty of space for the musician’s intricate storytelling. Ashworth’s Richmond is populated with a sweeping cast of connected characters, there are deaths, disappearances, mysteries, and beauty. The result is like an alternate universe where Bruce Springsteen circa Nebraska teamed with Stephin Merritt to write a musical version of a classic Cohen Brothers movie. Or more simply: it’s Advance Base at his very best and it’s one of the most stirring albums of 2024.

Ashworth discussed the new single, saying:

“”Brian’s Golden Hour” is a song about Brian, a fictional teenage skateboarder in the fictional American town of Richmond, the same place where most of Horrible Occurrences takes place. Brian has glorious plans to film himself skating off his parents’ roof and down a ramp that he’s set up in the alley alongside the house. Brian is going to perform the trick just after sunrise during ‘the golden hour’ when the light is most beautiful. Standing on the roof at sunrise, Brian has a premonition that the trick won’t go as planned. He sees a terrible future stretch out before him in a flash. But Brian’s fine. It was all in his head. It isn’t too late to change his mind. That’s what I keep telling myself, at least.

I recorded the instrumental passage that introduces ‘Brian’s Golden Hour’ on an Opus 3, a paraphonic synthesizer introduced by Moog in 1980. I have a sentimental attachment to the Opus 3. I first played my friend Jason Quever’s Opus 3 at his recording studio while we were trying out some different arrangement ideas for the song ‘Your Dog’ from the 2018 Advance Base album Animal Companionship. The Opus 3 was just what the song needed, and I really fell in love with the sound of that synthesizer that day. So, after Joe Pera licensed ‘Your Dog’ for his comedy special, Relaxing Old Footage With Joe Pera, I used the licensing fee to buy my very own Opus 3. It appears on four of Horrible Occurrences’ eleven tracks, including the album’s first single, ‘The Year I Lived in Richmond.’ The way I use the Opus 3 on Horrible Occurrences was inspired by John Carpenter’s scores for his early horror films like Halloween and The Fog. It’s the sound of apprehension, a warning that something horrible is about to occur.”

Advance Base
Horrible Occurences
tracklist
Run For Cover Records

1. The Year I Lived in Richmond
2. The Tooth Fairy
3. Big Chris Electric
4. How You Got Your Picture on the Wall
5. Rene Goodnight
6. The One About the Rabbit in the Snow
7. Brian’s Golden Hour
8. Little Sable Point Lighthouse
9. Andrew & Meagan
10. Premonition
11. Richmond

Advance Base 2024 Tour Dates

12/06 Louisville, KY @ Surface Noise *
120/7 Lexington, KY @ Green Lantern *
12/08 Nashville, TN @ Drkmttr ^
12/09 Chattanooga, TN @ Woodshop
12/10 Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light
12/11 Asheville, NC @ Static Age %
12/12 Greensboro, NC @ Etc. +
12/13 Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
12/20 Chicago, IL @ Color Club Ballroom (record release show) #

* w/ Rebecca Clay Cole
^ w/ Kyle Hamlett Uno
% w/ Colin Miller, Corey Parlamento
+ w/ Kill the Buddha, Moon Racer
$ w/ Attic Friend
# w/ Karima Walker

Pre-order Horrible Occurences HERE