I like it when people hear my songs, and I know that they're generally less keen to if they have to fork out for the privilege. Especially without knowing what they're getting. So if you're uncertain if you'll like that ten-dollar CD, here, have a sample - and in case you're broke (like me) I've made it lots of samples, so you won't miss out. Striking a balance between capitalism and communism! Oh yeah! That's how I roll.
Click a song's title to download it. They are hosted externally.
All songs are in MP3 format, 32khz, 96kbps, stereo. Apologies for the low bitrate; it's to save filesize, and also so people will have some incentive to eventually acquire my CDs and enjoy the songs in glorious hear-o-vision.
You can also stream selected tracks at my horrible and vaguely unnecessary (and never updated) social networking page.
A fourteen-track extravaganza this time (damn, I love that word) that explores birth, life, mortal peril, and the folly of imposing a tripartate narrative structure on your life. Release imminent (Auckland Armageddon, around the end of October.) Buy it! Buy it for the sake of that one species of salamander that currently escapes both my mind and its poorly secured enclosure.
Below are a couple of tracks from the beginning of the album, as a taster. There are a few more floating about in cyberspace, for those of you who follow my DA page.
An ode to being really heavily massively cheesed off when a band you really like puts out a new album and you hear it and think "how on earth did they get that bad without noticing?"
A song for things that weren't meant to exist, and the troubles of their day-to-day existences. Has owls in it. (Well, mostly.)
Also appearing in this album: butterflies (thousands of them), adolescent rage, Irish jigs, the Cold War (again), swirly destructive things, elementary particles and much, much more.
And, without wishing to make it too plain, there's a rumour that the physical CD version may actually have more than the stated number of tracks. You didn't hear it from me, of course.
Back to topAvailable now! A full eleven-and-a-half-song extravaganza! If you would really, really like one in the flesh (or cold, hard plastic) but have no means of physically walking/swimming up to me and buying it (for $10NZ) then we can arrange something dastardly by the magic of email.
That said - It's the modern era, and no-one likes paying for music anymore, including me (although I should) so this whole album is now up on a pay-if-you-like-it-enough and can-afford-it basis. Share it about. All I ask is that I'm credited as the original author, and that it's not used for anything commercial without consulting me. (Please! Buy my soul!)
I do hope you find them enjoyable.
+(01) The Seventy-Foot Titanium Overture
A little introduction, courtesy of me trying to sound like the BBC, which is a habit that may make me appear foolish, but brings me much pleasure.
The opening track. A story of an argument between a mother and her child, who wants to run out and play in the suspicious substances raining from the clouds. It's a song about learning to understand another's perspective, and avoiding hideous skeletal mutation.
The Cold War is in my blood somewhere. Everything I do seems to carry a hint of it somewhere, despite my utter lack of involvement in the actual events that defined it. But one can dream. This here's a song about water in the ballast tanks of a strategic SSBN, and what it might be thinking to itself.
I used to live near the Port of Tauranga. It was a big industrial area, with cranes and docks and those giant spheres and cylinders that hold fuel. I always daydreamed about how cool it would look with a giant, bemused woman trampling all over it. This is her story.
A tribute to the narrative sadism of Hideaki Anno. Plus it's hella cheerful.
If you've read Catch-22, this song is slightly more meaningful. Otherwise it's gibberish and a complete waste of taxpayers' money. Which would you enjoy more? We won't judge you.
Flying was exciting once. Flying has become boring to some people. Some people have terrible ways of resolving boredom. Some people's fellow passengers agree that these ways are terrible.
We tune out for a moment, to the soft chorale of the huge mechanical ladies.
One of the album's "rockers". A collaboration between myself and the inimitable Matthew Wills, a.k.a Murk. It details the grandiose exploits of a horse with rockets strapped to his back - in fact, the horse with rockets strapped to his back.
A lighthearted tale of vaguely cthuloid environmental physics, with very jaunty bass and several people yelling "hoi!" at the end. You will be entranced, meet a tall dark rectangle, and suffer a personal loss.
I wanted to write a cute little song with few chords, ostensibly about cute little songs with few chords.
+(12) Unexpected Demise of A Main Character
My unweildy-est title to date.
The title track. I hope it gives you a pleasant feeling of military agriculture.
This has been my first full-length album. I tremendously enjoyed making it, even while cursing bitterly at four in the morning, and the nice things people have said about it were a not wholly expected bonus. Getting a lovely wife out of it was even more unexpected. So, thank you, existence. I promise I'll keep making things that are hopefully nice. My love to all of you.
Back to topHere, you can have the whole EP, it's pretty old now.
My first release; umpteen burnt CDs, no booklet, album art done with a stencil and spray paint. Indie cred up the wazoo. Also, paint fumes up the wazoo. Headaches. Wazooaches. The production is much rougher than my current efforts, but I am nonetheless certain you will like it at least a little bit.
Bonus: Two of the tracks from this release ("Orange Juice" and "Unexpected Demise Of A Main Character") were remastered for inclusion on my current album. You're getting the improved versions of both, because I figured "why upload the scruffy ones?"
This is a spoken-word-and-obnoxious-riff-based piece about many things that shine, with background hisses and honks courtesy of Logic's ancient and capricious audio engine, and a saucepan cameo.
An enthusiastic little number in... orange. This song is funnier if you have watched End Of Evangelion, although it should afford some amusement regardless. WARNING: may solo.
I am afraid of the weather, but occasionally I want to play in it, as long as I am not carrying anything water-damageable. A thin, anxious song where I dangle my heart out of a window for a bit.
Original composer: Junichi Masuda (I think.) A silly cover of my favourite piece from Pokemon Red/Blue, with large guitars that squall at each other from quite a long way up in the air. I'm calling it a parody, if any lawyers ask.
+(05) Unexpected Demise Of A Main Character
A piece I built around the idea of an obnoxiously bombastic anime protagonist getting killed during his own debut entrance, contrary to the intended plot of the show. Contains big ol' unwieldy titles.
This song goes out to all those girls who have no limbs.
I've recorded and/or co-written a few other songs with Matthew Wills, besides Rocket Horse. They are here presented in descending order of recent-ness. The older ones have pretty rough production (some intentionally, some not) but they might be worth a giggle or two.
Lyrics by Matthew Wills and Thomas Bullock, music by Thomas Bullock
The loud, growly tale of a young man's unending and frustratingly inept quest for self-annihilation. He also lives under the sea.
Lyrics by Matthew Wills, music by Thomas Bullock
Not as offensive as it sounds! Like Rocket Horse, this is a lyric Matt wrote back in high school, which I recently got round to fitting a riff to.
Lyrics by Matthew Wills, music by Thomas Bullock
For a series of Flash cartoons Matt made, following an unconventional manservant who cleans crockery and houseware by shooting them, often injuring and horribly disfiguring his master in the process. ("Aaaaah! Shards of mug!")
As a bonus, here's a piano version!
Lyrics mostly by Matthew Wills, music by Thomas Bullock
Matt built the lyric to this song by farming a random-sentence-generator (I believe it was this one, visit it, it's fun) until we had a string of senseless lyrics, which he then tweaked to make them funnier. An avant-garde experiment on human tendencies in pattern recognition, or two guys tooling around with an internet applet and an ancient digital audio interface? You decide. (It's the latter.)
Lyrics by Matthew Wills, music (?) by Thomas Bullock
A song about a musically unskilled goth kid performing in some dingy alt club. More tweaked sentence-gen foolishness.
Another fine friend of mine who also happens to be called Matt, Mr. Bentley is a master of noises, and it's his masterful ear that hovers over the tracks from time to time to make sure I have not left an uncomfortable hissing sound, a discordant clang or a large wheelbarrow where it might not belong. Occasionally, he likes to make very scruffy songs to burn off the stress of being so careful and tidy, so we pick up objects that emit sound when walloped and we yell about stuff. More to come.
Lyrics and music by Matthew Bentley and Thomas Bullock
A venture into what we believe to be an entirely new genre. We call it "fraughtcore". It's very fraught.
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All content (c) 2008-2009 Thomas Bullock, unless specified otherwise. All rights reserved.