Cask J. Thomson is a Scottish-born, Australian-based musician, producer, and designer known for his work in progressive rock and synth-pop. His notable projects include ''CASK'', ''HELIXIRx'', and ''Empty Triangles''. He heads the independent label AudioDefine Records and its sublabel Same Great Sound, which focuses on pop and electronic music. He also runs CASKaudio, providing a range of sample packs, impulse responses, and sound design tools for musicians and producers.

Biography

Born in

Falkirk Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, and based in

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia, Cask J. Thomson started performing as a teenager and taught himself guitar, keyboards, drums and how to produce music. Initially focusing on

analog recording Analog recording is a category of techniques used for the recording of analog signals. This enables later playback of the recorded analog audio. Analog audio recording began with mechanical systems such as the phonautograph and phonograph. La ...

, Thomson wrote and recorded his debut as Cursed Legacy. The album was recorded live to 7" tape with overdubs and tape loops to simulate a multitrack recording. As a result, the album features hiss and audible tape glitches that were left in during mastering by

Jeff Cripps Jeff Cripps is an Australian recording engineer and award winning music producer,recording over 300 Albums, both for many local bands within New South Wales as well as throughout Australia and internationally. Many see him solely as a producer of ...

in Sydney. The album was distributed in Australia by

Festival Mushroom Records A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival constitutes ...

and released independently. Cask J. Thomson is a Scottish-born Australian producer, composer, musician, graphic designer and author He has released 3 albums as ''Cask''. His latest album "Surviving on Borrowed Time" was released exclusively as

Direct Stream Digital Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is a trademark used by Sony and Philips for their system for digitally encoding audio signals for the Super Audio CD (SACD). DSD uses delta-sigma modulation, a form of pulse-density modulation encoding, a techniqu ...

in 2019, before releasing in other formats worldwide in December In August 2020, Thomson premiered synth-pop project HELIXIRx. The first single "Gravity" features on the Spotify editorial playlist "Outrun". The single was streamed over 70,000 times during October and was featured in online coverage of the October SpaceX launch. The debut album Authenticity was released in November. Thomson is a professional

graphic designer A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming ...

and runs a book publishing company. His independent record label AudioDefine Records has released most of his projects as well as that of Dutch pianist Johan Versk In 2010 Thomson performed as a session guitarist for Sydney band

Operator Please Operator Please were an Australian pop band, originating in the Gold Coast, Queensland, in 2005. Their final line-up consisted of vocalist and guitarist Amandah Wilkinson, drummer Tim Commandeur, keyboardist Chris Holland, bassist Ashley McC ...

and ''

Australian Idol ''Australian Idol'' is an Australian singing competition, which began its first season in July 2003 and ended its initial run in November 2009. As part of the ''Idol'' franchise, Australian Idol originated from the reality program '' Pop Id ...

'' winner

Stan Walker Stan Walker (born 23 October 1990) is an Australian New Zealand singer, actor, and television personality. In 2009, Walker was the winner of the seventh season of ''Australian Idol''. He subsequently signed a recording contract with Sony Mus ...

during his From the Inside Out promotional tour. In 2017 he released his first solo album ''Play it Over and Start Again'' under Cask. The album features predominantly piano-driven contemporary music but does not stray from the gloomy lyrical and musical content Cursed Legacy features. The first single, "Bedridden (Move Forward)", premiered on Reverbnation where he reached 4th in the Independent Charts followed by a music video for "The Murder". In July 2018, Cask released "See What Tomorrow Brings". On 1 August 2018 he released his second album, ''Life is a Terminal Illness''. The album received critical acclaim and was released in high resolution

Cask released the song "Waited for You" in January 2019 claiming that it was to be used for a future album but "didn't fit". Cask posted a digital painting on his Instagram in May 2019 with the description "I have news from the conflict zone. 2019.

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

. End transmission". In August, Cask announced the concept album Surviving on Borrowed Time would be released in 2020 The official video and single "Presentiment" premiered after the announcement The album was released exclusively in

format in December 2019 before being released worldwide digitally and physically January 2, 2020. Outside of music, Thomson runs an independent book publishing company and operates a design and marketing firm. His UI and logo designs featured on the Linux distribution Ubuntu Thomson is an extraterrestrial research enthusiast who, under his publishing house, reissued ''Taken'' and ''Into the Fringe'' by Dr. Karla Turner. He was announced as a speaker at the Close Encounters conferences in 2019. Thomson's logo "hourglass" features an empty triangle atop a black triangle. The symbol has been used on all of his releases and major contributions since at least 2010. Cask described the symbol as "an important reminder to me that we are always on the clock". Outside of music, Cask has a collection of

Saab Saab or SAAB may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Saab AB, a Swedish aircraft, aerospace and defence company, still known as SAAB, and together with subsidiaries as Saab Group ** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab ...

cars including the "Wasaabi" that was purchased from Australian series Mighty Car Mods Cask is an outspoken privacy advocate and has written a series of articles on his website encouraging people to DeGoogle amidst privacy concerns and personal experience of automated

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

notices triggering his own music accounts.

Discography

CASK

* ''Play it Over and Start Again'' (2017) * ''Life is a Terminal Illness'' (2018) *''Surviving on Borrowed Time'' (2019)

HELIXIRx

* ''Authenticity'' (2021)

Additional Credits

* HELIXIRx - ''Authenticity'' (Composer, Co-Producer) * Empty Triangles (Composer, Producer, Mixing Engineer) ** ''1.0'' (2021) ** ''2.0'' (2021) ** ''A New Angle'' (2023) * Sunsetron - ''Into the Stratosphere'' (Performer and Producer)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, Cask J. Living people 21st-century Australian male singers British emigrants to Australia Year of birth missing (living people) Australian male guitarists