Thomas Music and Stuff

Progressive rock, concept albums and meaningful lyrics combined with overly long compositions.

My Music: Breakfast with Angels

Loosely based on ideas in Bulgakovs ‘Master and Margarita’, this song is about the apparent ease between good and evil.

My Music: Submariners

When it’s hot. And you’re at the bottom of the sea. And it’s getting hotter. And hotter. Then you need air.

My Music: The Ghost of Tom Joad

This song is written and originally released by Bruce Springsteen in 1995 and re-released on his newest album called High Hopes. This is an alternate version, true to the original but adding a few instruments to make it stand out.

My Music: Domino

This song is a tribute to Syd Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd. Syd passed away in 2006 and I started work on this track shortly thereafter. I would like to thank Josef Ohlmer (@josef-ohlmer) for his excellent saxophone-playing and valuable input in 2013.

My Music: Serenity (Parts 1-5)

pt 1. Serendipity
pt 2. Reality
pt 3. Serenity
pt 4. Apathy
pt 5. Clarity

My Music: I Person

I Person is a story about humanity in a post-Asimovish world paraphrasing his work “I Robot” – with a twist. In this song, we realize that we need to take back humanity from The Machine and return it to where it belongs.

My Music: Fear of Death Unsettles Me

This song is loosely based on the scottish poem “Lament for the Makaris” by William Dunbar (c.1460-c.1513) and the updated version of this poem by Joe Scanlan.

My Music: Ordinary Day

This is an older song from 2007. The sound is not great, but quite a few people still like it so I decided to publish it here. A pretty straightforward acoustic songs, one of the first all-acoustic (well, it has an electric bass) songs I’ve made. The mixing is nothing unusual; mixing into groups with buscomp’s all over and a mastering compressor/limiter at the end. This one also uses the Aphex Compellor as a final comp, just before the Kjaerhus Limiter.

The song is about ordinary people, during an ordinary day, doing ordinary things. People like you and me.

My Music: Fighterjets

Composed in 2009, this is a song that took 2 hours to compose and record and finish. It consists of three tracks: a synth, a harmonica and vocals. The harmonica is played thorugh a Northpole-filter for that unrecognizable sound.

Everything is squeezed together and crushed into a squarewave-like mastering using the TC X3 and a Kjaerhus MPL1-pro.

Thomas-Malmberg-Fighterjets.mp3

My Music: Fire in the Hole

The term ‘fire in the hole’ means that something is about to explode. This song is really not the happiest among songs. Initially this was a test for my new AKG C-414 microphone. Composed, recorded and mixed in a few hours it was quite an awful piece of work. This weekend I took the time to do some more experimenting and as a result all of the guitar parts, except for the solos were re-recorded. I also redid the bass-parts and remixed the whole thing.

The guitars are now recorded using an AKG C-414 TL and an AKG C-391 (both a CK-91 and a CK-92 capsule was used) in an M/S-pattern. This gave a better and more natural sound to the guitars without the need to double. A few backing parts are recorded only using the C-391. I used the built-in preamps of the Motu 828 for recording the guitars.

C-414 and C-391 in an M/S position

C-414 and C-391 in an M/S position

The vocals are recorded using the C-414 using a Presonus Eureka with some moderate eq and compression. The vocals are processed using the Aphex 104 for more clarity as they are quite compressed in the mix. The vocals are using a Roland SRE-555 monodelay (rackmount RE-501).

The bass is recorded thru a Focusrite tonefactory with both buzz, fuzz and eq enabled. The tonefactory is good for bass really. The bass is postprocessed using an Aphex 104 “Big Bottom”.

All the percussions are recorded using the aforementioned mics.

Mixing was pretty straightforward and conventional. The vocals were sidechained to the guitars for more “visibility”. Vocals are, as usual, compressed to be in your face. Otherwise just the normal stuff, both UAD and PowerCore-plugins. Ask if interested in details.

My Music: Rodeo Man

Composed in 2009, this tune was first made up of three acoustic tracks: vocals, guitar and percussions. Later it was spiced up with some whistling, backing vocals and a bassline. The most important addition though was the violin, played by my workmate Jani K. It added a more real country-feel to the whole thing. The percussions are played using some fruits and a dishbrush-bongo -combo.

This is a very straightforward acoustic mix with only acoustic instruments played live. Almost everything is tracked using the Presonus Evreka, except for the bass-guitar which is tracked using a Focusrite channelstrip. The mics used here are an AKG C-414 and an AKG C-391. The reverb is a Great British Spring -springreverb.