The names musicians choose to go by are nearly always nothing to do with what they represent, but in the case of Owen Ashworth it is. As his name suggests, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is, quite literally, painfully alone on stage with only his Casiotone keyboard for company.

His songs consist of clattering drum loops, scatty keyboard refrains and a lyrical style more reminiscent of a performance poet – short, sparky and all performed with a great earnestness.

Ashworth has earned himself a small, but dedicated following. Such a following, in fact, that he is now five albums into his career and his new release, Vs. Children, has been by far the most popular.

He airs most of the new record tonight, but bizarrely takes around half the set from crowd shout outs. This means that fan favourites like Ice Cream Truck and Roberta C are delivered to enormous crowd approval.

The closest comparison sonically to Casiotone is Deathcab For Cutie’s much loved side project, The Postal Service; beats skitter about while lyrics talk of lost love and homesickness. He’s like an electronic Eels or Bright Eyes.

The most remarkable thing about Casiotone, though, is his knack of finding the catchiest hooks for the tail end of his songs.

Over the course of the show, he reels off about ten refrains that could be stuck in the charts for weeks if pummelled into a Europop track, but he’s happy to play them for 30 seconds or so and then let them fade away, preferring people to be focused on his words.

Earnest as this sounds, and as serious as most of the show is, Ashworth is still in a festive mood. He wishes the crowd a merry Christmas and ends his set with Cold White Christmas, his ode to the forthcoming holidays.

It’s a heart-warming end to a great gig.