An original composition for the trailer soundtrack for a horror-action video game. 



I submitted this to the 2022 TAFE NSW-AVID-Innovative Music Mixing Awards. 

All work on this track is my own, for better and worse.

On The Horizon

A mix of British prog-rock band Big Big Train's extraordinary performance of the extraordinary song 'Transit of Venus Across The Sun', recorded live by Telefunken at Real World Studios. 

The mix itself was completed as part of an assessment in 2022 and submitted to the 2022 TAFE NSW-AVID-Innovative Music Mixing Awards. I had less than 24 hours notice before submissions ended, but didn't find myself wanting to tweak this too much thankfully. It hasn't been mastered for commercial release so will be a little quiet, and there's a few things I'd certainly improve in retrospect, but this is the track untouched since submission. 

The multitrack stems were provided by https://www.telefunken-elektroakustik.com/multitrack/big-big-train-multitrack/ and all rights and ownership of the recording belong entirely to their respective rights holders. I am only responsible for this version of the mixed tracks.

RIP David Longdon x

Mix - Transit Of Venus Across The Sun

While we're at it, I finished this cover of ELO's Don't Bring Me Down a few days ago. 

Made life hard for myself by taking a song with very famous falsetto and tuning it down to the point that I couldn't sing it in falsetto, so had to rewrite the vocal harmonies and most of the song to get it to work together. Could've added layers forever but I only had limited time and I'm pretty happy with it. Should've called it 'Don't Tune Me Down', but the artwork is done, so that's that.

Written by Jeff Lynne, adapted and performed by me, all rights belong to the respective right holders.

Don't Bring Me Down(tuned)

I wrote a song about going to a social gathering and not wanting to socialise, and then finding company in somone else who also doesn't want to socialise. 

This is that song.

Music & lyrics: Me. Matt Graham. I did them.

Together Alone

Together Alone - Mix

All rights and credits belong to the composers of the original version: MYGIND A/WERNER M/MOGENSEN N/JANZI A of the fantastic Danish band VOLA.

Link is in the bio, as always. Check out the original here for a comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV71YZluVQc

This began as part of an assignment to rework an existing song. I've loved VOLA and this song years, but had no idea where to start and the first draft was essentially a complete recreation of the original with some acoustic guitars here and there.

I had to go back to the start and redo about 70% of the arrangement. Even still I didn't end up straying from the original in terms of composition, beyond the intro.

It was a difficult process as I was working with time and technical constraints, made some simple mistakes and took shortcuts that I baked into the tracks for convenience in the short term. In the long term it meant that if I wanted to release a version I was happy with I'd have to spend hours working around these issues rather being able to fix them. Which is exactly what I did.

In the end I just had to stop work and let it out of its cage.

Alien Shivers - VOLA Cover

I was listening today and realised I'd uploaded my mix of Together Alone without finishing it for release. This one is a little bigger, a fair bit bassier, and hits a bit harder - in other words it's closer to the kind of sound I'd imagined. I figured I'd upload the Master seperately so there's a before and after for those who care.

I wrote a song about going to a social gathering and not wanting to socialise, and then finding company in somone else who also doesn't want to socialise. 

This is that song.

Music & lyrics: Me. Matt Graham. I did them.

Together Alone - Master

MUSIC: M. Graham; LYRICS: S. Eliot

This one had some dust blown off it a few times. I recorded the music in 2022 - the first metal song I'd written in...10-15 years? Mixing metal is hard as hell, and I restarted from scratch about 2-3 times as I was learning. A colleague of mine (who you can find online as Jackal Crow) lent his incredible lyrical and vocal talents. We worked so well on this that we have a few more in the works.

Took me over a year to get the time to really dive into it and polish it up, and then I decided I was going to release the 4 songs we have almost finished all at once as an EP. And with that single move I created an obstacle so large I couldn't even begin to surmount it. 

So I took 2 months off (not by choice, just entered a fugue state and finished every Soulsborne game), and then came back to it a few days ago and finished it. 

And here we are - the first song from a project called REFINERY. I hope this gets you through your work day.

Blood Red Rust

Music: M Graham; Lyrics: Jessii Taylor

This is a guitar tune I wrote in an English garden 6 or 7 years ago. It sat in my memory for a long time until I gave it to Jessii as an aside one day, asking if she'd do me the honour of writing lyrics to it and a year later it dropped into my inbox in the state it finds you. She turned it into something more beautiful and personal than I ever imagined and it's one of my favourite pieces to ever have been involved in.

Undertow

Lyrics and music by Ezekiel Ox. 

I asked Zeke if I could share this tune online because I love the song so much. He wrote it as a birthday present for a relative and asked me to record and mix it for him. It's bombastic and heartfelt and a big piece by a big personality and that's right up my alley. I've recorded far less complex pieces that were a lot harder to put together, but Zeke had a really strong idea of what he wanted to hear and it came together relatively easily. He gave me free reign with the bass line and vocals I think it proved once again that I'm a far better musician in collaboration than on my own.

Thermite Hacksaw

I wrote a little song about how older people need love too; a heartwarming ballad that harkens back to the great romantic works of Byron, Shakespeare, and Joyce.

Music/Lyrics: Matt Graham

I get outta my house, got a spring in my step today
Got a night on the town with a woman who carried my heart away
One foot in the door and she knocks me dead,
Now I'm on my knees, she's beckoning to me
And this is what she said:

"You look like a lovely young man. Can you tell me where to find the pokie room? Ooo, what beautiful blue eyes you have. My grandson turned 37 this year"

I got a hunger for a grey gourmet delight, 
A girl with ten percent of her sight
She might be hard of hearing, her blood pressure is high,
She's a sundown beauty with a radiant smile
And I'm an old lady lover and I'll love her tonight, alright!

It's 6pm and we're in bed
But we're not getting frisky, no - we're going to sleep instead.
So she rolls over to hit the light
Like the crack of a whip, she broke another hip,
Now we're going to the hospital tonight

I've only got myself to blame
I got a taste for bingo wings and naughty senior dames.
I can't fight this unmistakable feeling
Well bless my soul cos I've been saved 
By a woman with one foot in the grave

"I was playin hoops in the alley when the wireless said Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been shot. Back in my you could get fourty-eight eggs for a single pfennig! Who are you again? Yes I'd like to return these grapes. Are you the postman? I read on the internet that tap water gives you Brittle Bone Disease. My basement's quite dusty but, ah, we could sweep it together..."

Now time's advance don't weigh upon the bearing of desire,
My lovin' has no expiration date. 
And her medicate ointments burn like fuel upon the fire
I'm hot for teacher learning from the class of 1928

Blood Red Rust

Ambi.ent Matt