My first professional release album
was released on 31st July 2012.
Available here for $5 or on iTunes for much more than $5 because Apple are vampires.
Music That You Can Hear consists of the last three years of my musical works. This includes all my old tracks that you've heard over the past three years remastered for better quality, as well as four brand new tracks Confusion, Overhand, Experimental and Prism. Twenty-four tracks in total. I hope you enjoy it better than listening to silence.
Casale's instrumental cross-style fusion music
I realise it's very easy to download my songs without buying them, and I really don't mind. Consider buying a donation to help me afford to spend more time making my music. I'm not starving, and until I am, don't feel bad about skipping the whole "paying money" part.
Hopefully, you will find my music somewhat agreeable.
The Entire Casale Discography (Past & Future)
Subscribe for a one-off price and get unlimited, permanent access to all my tracks, as well as new tracks as they are created in the future. $5 for permanent, unlimited downloads.
Theo! The word means "God". I have a sheep whose name is God, and he used to be a massive dick to the other sheep, but they got bigger than him and now he's more passive. Authur, on the other hand! That heavy bastard almost weighs as much as I do, clipping his feet is not a light task because you have to wrestle him to his back.
This is a song about something overwhelming complicated but infinitely simple. The song itself is complicated, which reflects this. Every instrument represents something significant to me, but as always I encourage you to find your own meaning to my songs, assuming you can be bothered.
Theo is a return to the fine-sounding pianoish style that made me famous. 132 fans on Facebook can't be wrong! Look out Lady Gaga, Puff Daddy, Prince and whoever else is popular these days.
Deep in rural New Zealand, 1992, a song that played on TV for some bank advert had a classical tune that I liked. I figured out how to play it on the piano.
About the same time, a friendly, simple, loyal old sheepdog Bobby went missing during a scientific survey some 11-year-old idiot was conducting in a forest.
In a bizarre and misguided attempt to create music that you should feel, I believe I successfully created a song that would be enjoyed by deaf people. Exclusively enjoyed by deaf people. I paid special attention to equalisation on this track, so that certain bass frequencies hit in different rhythms.
Interestingly, this song is just piano, drums and my voice. The bass synth is my voice. The high pads are my voice too. What? Yes! It's all my own voice nicely resynthesised. And it certainly is not ironic that my voice is better enjoyed by deaf people.
I don't really want to publish the nature of this song, but don't let that stop you speculating its intended meaning! Much like not knowing how to drive a car shouldn't stop you attempting to drive, nor should not knowing how to build a house stop you firing your builder and doing all the work yourself. With blind luck as my co-pilot, I have personally survived many of my attempts to undertake professional work myself instead of paying someone "qualified" to do it. In fact, a doctor once commended my attempt at midnight DIY at home self-surgery on my ingrown toenail when I was 24 or thereabouts. He said "we don't usually do that procedure any more, it is deemed 'too painful'." True story.
This may seem silly. Overhand is a type of punch which works by coming up high over your head then arcing downwards at an angle towards the opponent's skull. It is notoriously difficult to block because of its unusual trajectory and the misleading movement of the shoulders. Plus the overhand punch generates a great deal of kinetic energy and really rattles the brain good.
Conversely, the word underhand denotes a kind of subtlety and snideness that generally describes a remark or verbal jab. For example, if I was to tell you your shoes looked nice for someone of your kind, you may well infer I'm making an underhand insult about you. For which, the correct response is a nice overhand punch to my skull.
There are very few problems a good overhand punch can't solve. Guy in front of you in the queue just bought the last pie? Overhand punch to the skull. Suddenly, you have a pie! Car window broken and won't wind down? Overhand punch will sort that window out post haste. Ham sandwich too salty? Bam! Overhand punch will fix that, or your money back. Postman keeps delivering you junk mail despite your sign that says "no adverts"? Shoelaces too tight? Worker at the theme park refuses to let you on the ride for "safety reasons" because you're "too tall"? Overhand punch every time.
I can't think of any problem that can't be solved with an overhand punch. And neither can you!
This song is not really about overhand punches, but it was originally written at a time when I was quite into the old overhand punch and its correlating theology. This song a prototype, I'm almost certain to change this song radically in the future, unless problems occur such as I die or forget. Both of which can be remedied with a nice overhand punch.
I was in two minds about ever releasing this song, since everyonewho has ever listened to it hates it (except me).
Granted, it is very unusual to find a song with 3/3 timing. And granted it is very unusual to have a song that uses the chromatic key or pentatonic scale. This song has both of these lovely features and more!
Sometimes you have to let it all out. Some kind of yell or shout or scream. Prism is about pain, agony and anguish.
At risk of being too descriptive, I'll elaborate: This is a song I originally wrote on the guitar when I was 19 or so. It contains guitars. It contains traditional music elements such as notes and chords. It has a 4/4 time signature.
Too much information? If so, then please retrocognitavely eliminate the sentences after which you felt the information became sufficient.
I started writing this song in 1996, at the height of my Metallica and electric guitar obsession. I've just finished this song now, in 2012.
If you wanted to listen to a heavy song, then this song is probably too heavy for you. In terms of weight, I've aimed for somewhere between an amplifier exploding and a tank being eaten by a giant robot shark, all the while listening to this song on a stolen MP3 player made of depleted uranium.
Sometimes you have good news, but the catch is you don't necessarily know it's good news. For me, this song is about some recent good news.
Like the song "Lucid", I have dreamed about this song for a few weeks. I wasn't playing it on a piano in the (most prominent) dream, it was different. At risk of sounding like a crazy hippie, I was kind of "explaining" this song to a future being.
Unfortunately it is not easy to remember a dreamt song, let alone convert it to a real life digital production. But this is my best attempt, my best being about 15% efficiency. There may be more attempts in the future.
I was simmering some delicious water for my lunch, when I had a strange thought: When a regrettable event occurs, you can turn the tables by learning from that event. Therefore, the event has taught you how to understand and avoid similar events and more serious versions thereof. In effect, this makes the event no longer regrettable. A sacrifice for a better future.
Of course, when you listen to this song, the music will tell you your own story, which may be different to the story it tells me.
This is the first time I've used my own voice sample in a song. It sounds like tarzan, which is ironic because a gay man at the gym in London used to call me tarzan all the time. Which is ironic because it's not at all ironic.
This song, and I use the word "song" loosely, began life as a nice old-fashioned piano song, but then devolved into what can only be described as LOUD NOISES, aka an interesting new genre called complextro.
If you don't like thinking too much, this song could be about frustration, otherwise it can be about whatever you like.
Where did you buy your clothes? From the toilet store?
If that last sentence makes no sense, you should refer to the brilliant comedy films of genius actor Steve Carrell. Steve graciously allowed me to use his voice in this song. And by "allowed me to" I mean "doesn't know that I".
I think I've mentioned once or twice before that all of my songs are instrumental for two main reasons:
First - I like songs that have no spoken lyrics because lyrics seem to force a meaning to a song that doesn't always suit the listener. The best songs always let the music speak for itself.
Second - I lack the talent, skills and equipment to produce and record tuneful voice.
Piper is my Shetland Sheepdog. He likes to sing, especially when there is insufficient attention being sent in his direction. In this stunningly high-quality, professionally edited video, you can see how his singing can be put to a delightful tune, of sorts. Your 49c will be split between the SPCA and SAFE Animal Welfare.
"Head like a fucking orange!" is how Ricky Gervais describes his friend Karl Pilkington.
One of the best conversations recorded between Ricky, Karl and Steve Merchant involves stick insects and the intricacies of evolutionary defence measures.
The full dialogue was cleverly stolen by me to use in this new song, named after Mr Pilkington himself, to which you can listen right here.
I had to make a TV commercial that gave the viewer energy. Energy!? It's difficult to express the concept of "energy" in musical form.
So I tried expressing energy in writing, mostly physics formulae, but it was deemed "too sterile". Then I tried to express energy with interpretive dance, but the people in the airport thought I was having seisure and called the ambulance. So I went back to expressing energy with music.
Luckily, music fits with a TV commercial better than a bland voice explaining the physical properties of energy in monotone, and far better than someone performing a seisure-like dance in the corner.
1) Apparently, if you map a chord sequence to mimic the helical structure of DNA, you get a fairly pleasant sounding tune.
2) If you point to someone while gradually widening your eyes and mouth, they will get progessively more uncomfortable and agitated. Try it! It's fun until they threaten to call the pilot and have you arrested as soon as you land.
In any case, this song goes back to my old style, which gives me a break from attempting "dubstep" and similar offensive noises. Rah!
So, apparently this kind of sound is called "dubstep". I like the variety and complication. But who doesn't like complicated music? Everyone, apparently.
I went to a "club" last month and they played music which sounded awful. Limited to one instrument and a brainless vocal slogan playing over the top.
Immediately, I realised that I too can make awful music. But it ended up sounding good, unless you don't like dubstep, in which case this music will sound like a 56k modem being attacked by an edge trimmer.
One of the older covers of the Dexter theme by Daniel Licht, remade entirely in the form of Dubstep.
RUSSIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM
Have you ever tried to speak Russian? Well, try learning the Russian National Anthem. When I tried, it was immediately apparent that it would take considerably less time and effort to write my own version instead.
Tribute to the best song ever written, according to myself age 15. Unlikely to be as good as the original "Enter Sandman", which isn't saying much because Sandman is one of the best songs of all time.
For me, this song is about fighting, in the physical combat sense. Little unimportant details such as when the fight starts to take control of the mind, rather than the other way around, and deciding you might not like who you are when you start fighting for real.
This song took awhile, because I wanted to do a good job to pay proper tribute to Metallica. Even though this isn't metal. Or "lica". Or music?
The best song of the 80s-90s era was not "Smells like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, despite what every person in my year 10 class thought. No, the famed prize went to a fairly unknown song that featured in the Lucasarts puzzle game, Monkey Island. This song was the only song to reach 100% awesomeness on the Casale Awesomeness Scale (tm), which is obviously the most recognised official ratings system ever to be invented.
This is my cover. I changed the time signature, some chords, pattern, tempo, instruments, and pretty much everything except the fundamental melody.
I hope you have a lifeboat handy! Why? Did you want to borrow one?
What is a ghost? Is a ghost a misconstrued metaphorical idea, or simply a myth? Well, that's hardly the kind of question I'm intellectually equipped to answer, so I won't.
This song is called Ghost, because it is pretty much identical to the theme of that classic movie-film, Ghostbusters. Who shalt thou call? Ghostbusters! That one. I've changed it slightly, as I tend to do. Remember this is in no way due to lack of skill, it is all entirely intentional.
I think I'm slowly getting better at making songs. Despite what all my critics say! And by critics I mean friends, family and random strangers.
Who is a monkey? You are! And so am I. If this is not your current system of belief, I recommend thinking about it for a bit. If you aren't familiar with "thinking", it's this process where you question things that are told to you and try to make logic out of them. For example, if I was to tell you that there was an angry creature living in the sky who oversees everything we do, you might question that. And probably determine that based on overwhelming evidence the contrary, I was wrong.
This song is about none of that! For me it's about life and how splendid life can be.
Breathe is a complex song, and I don't say that lightly. For me this song is about "swimming" so to speak. Back in the days when I used to go down to the beach and swim out as far as possible then just wait in the water, where you can only hear water and your own heart beat. It's fun, until someone pointed out how dangerous it was. Pish posh! I told them between slurps of my delicious pumpkin soup. Pish posh. I'll not let idle threats like death by drowning stop me doing my ridiculous swimming challenges! Have a listen.
Rapid-fire base-remix sequel to the track "Rain as we Sleep". I don't think this song is that bad, in fact I quite like it. But that doesn't mean you have to, because as the saying goes, always judge a book by its cover. We interrupt this news broadcast to bring you back to the topic at hand: what this song is about. As always it can be about whatever you want. For me, this song is about reversal of perspective.
Have you seen Dexter? It's a television programme. It's about a guy who is a serial killer but he only kills bad people who the law can't touch for whatever reason. It has a pretty good theme song that uses strings etc. This is a cover of the original song by Daniel Licht. I've used the classic combination of electric guitars and ragtime pianner with a buzzing bassline and semi-dubstep beat. If that doesn't sound like a classic combination it's because it isn't.
While making my short video on lucid dreaming for Becky's website World-of-Lucid-Dreaming.com I needed a nice piece of music I could use without getting sued. I started by writing a kind of clunky piano piece in a hurried kind of way, but then I got tired so I went to bed. The next morning, before waking up, I had a small lucid dream during which I decided to compose a song on a piano made out of pure energy and light. That's right, this song was written while I was asleep. It was actually about ten times as long but I couldn't remember all of it. After I woke up, I hopped on the piano and started working out how to play the song, and I established as much of it as I could remember. Lucid is a strange song, amen.
My revison of the Lucid song, this was the soundtrack for a lucid dream induction video. This song uses subtle chimes and specific tones to anchor the listener to certain themes in the video. The lucid dreaming induction video can be seen at http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/videos/ This song is being followed with a non-subliminal remix of the 2nd part video's more high-intensity soundtrack. This track comes free with the original Lucid - buy one, get both.
Shelties are dogs, of which I coreside with two, named Mr Howard Woofington-Moon and Mr Piper Woofington-Moon (they are brothers). This is a short piano piece about these dogs and was written specially for a short video I made for Becky's birthday, called "The first year of the brothers Woofington-Moon." The video was essentially 150 various photos of our dogs in rapid succession, with the music playing in the foreground. Foreground!
Bouncer is a stange hybrid of reggae and drum&bass. It is supposed to be about that "bouncy" feeling you get at the beach when everything is going well and you have things to look forward to later on. This is not meant to be about a bouncer, ie, a person who stands at a door to a club or bar and tells people to go away when they don't have matching shoes. Snobs. Who are they to decide what is considered "appropriate"? I'll wear as many hats and as few shoes as I like!
It goes with this video below which I made for Becky for christmyth 2010:
Careful of this one. Very carefully made after I was tricked into taking some herbal sleeping pills prior to a long-haul flight across the world. Best sleeping pills ever, was not able to sleep, so I sat in a barely-cognitive state and wrote this song about my dogs, who I hadn't seen for a month and very much missed. Man I missed those dogs. If this track in any way conveys the feeling of "missing your dog" then I consider it a success. Like all my tracks, this is what this song is about for me - you can attribute whatever suits you.
Subscribe for a one-off price and get unlimited, permanent access to all my tracks, as well as new tracks as they are created in the future. $5 for permanent, unlimited downloads.
Good morning! If does happen to be morning-time, please skip the next paragraph.
Just kidding, I know it is actually the afternoon, evening or night. Good respective time of day to you, sir. I hope you don't mind that for my introduction to my website I'm pretty much just writing the first thing that enters my curiously small head.
This website is here so that people can download my music and subsequently listen to it (optional). Having listened to the music, feel free to enjoy it, but no pressure. If you enjoy it, maybe even suggest it to your friends, assuming you have friends. Imaginary friends don't count, unless they do, in which case they do.
Feel free to listen to demos of each track. I realise it's not difficult to download these tracks for free, and I don't mind that at all. Consider paying for them an optional donation. Full tracks are MP3s of 256kbps quality, which makes an imperceivable difference in quality. You can buy them for 50 cents each, which goes towards me! Given the ridiculous amount of time I put into each track, I think it's worth it. Hopefully one day someone will buy a song! I vow to use my first 99 cents to buy myself a life.
About Casale
At risk of sounding even more pretentious by referring to himself in the third person perspective, Casale is basically just some guy who plays some instruments and makes some songs of his own. Casale started playing the piano when he was, erm, 5? Something like that. He's played the piano for as long as he can remember.
He also plays the guitar, bass guitar and drums at a level of skill he describes as "competence-curious". He mixes and masters all his songs on the computer, using a edgy combination of software, trial and error, and accidental "I don't know how I did that but it sounds cool so I'll leave it" moments, on which he relies heavily.
UPDATE 04 JULY 2010:
Some people are buying my music! This is a very strange yet pleasant thought for me, having made silly yet awesome songs since I was an eccentric child with piano access. I didn't really think anyone else would like my odd-sounding songs! Because people pay for the songs by paypal, I can see the name of each person that buys a song and which song they bought. Thanks, my friends!
Theo! The word means "God". I have a sheep whose name is God, and he used to be a massive dick to the other sheep, but they got bigger than him and now he's more passive. Authur, on the other hand! That heavy bastard almost weighs as much as I do, clipping his feet is not a light task because you have to wrestle him to his back.
Deep in rural New Zealand, 1992, a song that played on TV for some bank advert had a classical tune that I liked. I figured out how to play it on the piano.
In a bizarre and misguided attempt to create music that you should feel, I believe I successfully created a song that would be enjoyed by deaf people. Exclusively enjoyed by deaf people. I paid special attention to equalisation on this track, so that certain bass frequencies hit in different rhythms. 
I don't really want to publish the nature of this song, but don't let that stop you speculating its intended meaning! Much like not knowing how to drive a car shouldn't stop you attempting to drive, nor should not knowing how to build a house stop you firing your builder and doing all the work yourself. With blind luck as my co-pilot, I have personally survived many of my attempts to undertake professional work myself instead of paying someone "qualified" to do it. In fact, a doctor once commended my attempt at midnight DIY at home self-surgery on my ingrown toenail when I was 24 or thereabouts. He said "we don't usually do that procedure any more, it is deemed 'too painful'." True story. 
This may seem silly. Overhand is a type of punch which works by coming up high over your head then arcing downwards at an angle towards the opponent's skull. It is notoriously difficult to block because of its unusual trajectory and the misleading movement of the shoulders. Plus the overhand punch generates a great deal of kinetic energy and really rattles the brain good. 
I was in two minds about ever releasing this song, since everyonewho has ever listened to it hates it (except me). 
This is a song. 
I started writing this song in 1996, at the height of my Metallica and electric guitar obsession. I've just finished this song now, in 2012.
Sometimes you have good news, but the catch is you don't necessarily know it's good news. For me, this song is about some recent good news.
I was simmering some delicious water for my lunch, when I had a strange thought: When a regrettable event occurs, you can turn the tables by learning from that event. Therefore, the event has taught you how to understand and avoid similar events and more serious versions thereof. In effect, this makes the event no longer regrettable. A sacrifice for a better future.
This song, and I use the word "song" loosely, began life as a nice old-fashioned piano song, but then devolved into what can only be described as LOUD NOISES, aka an interesting new genre called complextro.
Back to my old style of instrumental piano music?
"Head like a fucking orange!" is how Ricky Gervais describes his friend Karl Pilkington.
I had to make a TV commercial that gave the viewer energy. Energy!? It's difficult to express the concept of "energy" in musical form.
I learned two things the week I wrote this song:
So, apparently this kind of sound is called "dubstep". I like the variety and complication. But who doesn't like complicated music? Everyone, apparently.
Tribute to the best song ever written, according to myself age 15. Unlikely to be as good as the original "Enter Sandman", which isn't saying much because Sandman is one of the best songs of all time.
How appropriate! You fight like a cow!
What is a ghost? Is a ghost a misconstrued metaphorical idea, or simply a myth? Well, that's hardly the kind of question I'm intellectually equipped to answer, so I won't.
Who is a monkey? You are! And so am I. If this is not your current system of belief, I recommend thinking about it for a bit. If you aren't familiar with "thinking", it's this process where you question things that are told to you and try to make logic out of them. For example, if I was to tell you that there was an angry creature living in the sky who oversees everything we do, you might question that. And probably determine that based on overwhelming evidence the contrary, I was wrong.
Breathe is a complex song, and I don't say that lightly. For me this song is about "swimming" so to speak. Back in the days when I used to go down to the beach and swim out as far as possible then just wait in the water, where you can only hear water and your own heart beat. It's fun, until someone pointed out how dangerous it was. Pish posh! I told them between slurps of my delicious pumpkin soup. Pish posh. I'll not let idle threats like death by drowning stop me doing my ridiculous swimming challenges! Have a listen.
Rapid-fire base-remix sequel to the track "Rain as we Sleep". I don't think this song is that bad, in fact I quite like it. But that doesn't mean you have to, because as the saying goes, always judge a book by its cover. We interrupt this news broadcast to bring you back to the topic at hand: what this song is about. As always it can be about whatever you want. For me, this song is about reversal of perspective.
Have you seen Dexter? It's a television programme. It's about a guy who is a serial killer but he only kills bad people who the law can't touch for whatever reason. It has a pretty good theme song that uses strings etc. This is a cover of the original song by Daniel Licht. I've used the classic combination of electric guitars and ragtime pianner with a buzzing bassline and semi-dubstep beat. If that doesn't sound like a classic combination it's because it isn't.
While making my short video on lucid dreaming for Becky's website 
Shelties are dogs, of which I coreside with two, named Mr Howard Woofington-Moon and Mr Piper Woofington-Moon (they are brothers). This is a short piano piece about these dogs and was written specially for a short video I made for Becky's birthday, called "The first year of the brothers Woofington-Moon." The video was essentially 150 various photos of our dogs in rapid succession, with the music playing in the foreground. Foreground!
Bouncer is a stange hybrid of reggae and drum&bass. It is supposed to be about that "bouncy" feeling you get at the beach when everything is going well and you have things to look forward to later on. This is not meant to be about a bouncer, ie, a person who stands at a door to a club or bar and tells people to go away when they don't have matching shoes. Snobs. Who are they to decide what is considered "appropriate"? I'll wear as many hats and as few shoes as I like! 
Careful of this one. Very carefully made after I was tricked into taking some herbal sleeping pills prior to a long-haul flight across the world. Best sleeping pills ever, was not able to sleep, so I sat in a barely-cognitive state and wrote this song about my dogs, who I hadn't seen for a month and very much missed. Man I missed those dogs. If this track in any way conveys the feeling of "missing your dog" then I consider it a success. Like all my tracks, this is what this song is about for me - you can attribute whatever suits you.
