Podcast Music

I have been composing and recording music and song for podcasts since 2007, here is a sample:

You can listen to some samples of my podcast music organised into Themes, Bed Tracks, Full Songs and Live Scores – or it’s all together in the above soundcloud playlist. Or visit my podchaser profile.

Most recently:

• Created the theme for The Last Soviet (Samizdat / Kaleidoscope / iHeart) [Feb 2023]

• Composed music for The Allusionist episode “The Egg’s Warning”, using percussion from sampling a Kinder egg [March 2022].

• Created music for the Mubi podcast interview with Andrea Arnold (director of “Cow”). Mubi podcast (for which I wrote Seasons 1 & 2’s music) won the “Best Arts or Entertainment Podcast” at the Los Angeles Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards [Feb-June 2022]

• Producer/composer on Rigged, a new series by Amy Westervelt / Critical Frequency about the history of PR [Oct-Dec 2021].

• Composed music for the Shedunnit limited series, Queens Of Crime At War [Oct-Nov 2021]

• Wrote the music and performed with the Allusionist live at the London Podcast Festival [September 2021].

• Created the music for the Mubi Podcast [June 2021]

• Created the theme for The Romcom Rewrite [March 2021].

• Co-created the pandemic Christmas song Don’t Wait For Me Beneath The Mistletoe with Helen Zaltzman and Jenny Owen Youngs, and co-created Zoom Christmas and Christmas Meat Sweats for the A Festive Hit For 2020 episode of The Allusionist [December 2020].

• Wrote the music for all 15 Episodes of Maddie’s Sound Explorers [season 1], a science podcast for young people. Each episode features a piece of music made from the sounds of science, engineering and nature we’ve discovered during the episode, and weaves in ideas that Maddie and our experts provided during the episode [August-November 2020].

• Contributed music to the 20,000Hz episodes about Audio Deepfakes (September 2020) and John Cage’s 4’33” [January 2020], where the music was used in the subsequent mainstage TED talk – both of which I wrote and produced on.

• Audiocraft Podcast Festival – created a mashup of (mostly Australian) podcast themes for their opening night event [July 2020].

• Wife on Earth – wrote a song about The Bookseller Crow, my favorite independent bookshop [July 2020].

• I write theme music for the Zoom podcast (March 2019-June 2020 and onwards) – a movie podcast which focuses on a different genre each episode, so the theme song is different each time: spaghetti western, 50s scifi, zombie movie, classical, funk, Motown, Hot Club jazz…

• Wrote the theme and “hold music” for “Vera and Adrian are working from home” livestream series (May 2020)

• Wrote scores for episodes of The Tranquillusionist, episodes of the show designed to be particularly soothing and calming (March 2020)

• Created an original soundtrack for The Holiday Season, a podcast about the Nancy Meyers film The Holiday, inspired by Hans Zimmer’s score (December 2019).

• I composed the music for Veronica Mars Investigations (2019-), apart from the stuff that the wonderful Jenny Owen Youngs wrote.

• Wrote the song “Apple Tree” for the end of The Family Tree – a magic realist drama.

• I recorded the “Blockchain Explainer Song” and “Ethereum” for Episode 2 of ZigZag, and their end of Season One reprise, which was written up in the New York Times in 2018.

• In June 2017 I composed and recorded the score for The Allusionist’s Eclipse, inspired by Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart:

• and in May 2016 created the score for Continental using items in a Moab Bed and Breakfast:

• The Allusionist (theme and music, 2015-)
• Answer Me This (music director and composer, 2007-)

• Zoom (2019-2020)
• Veronica Mars Investigations (theme, other music, 2019)

• Zig Zag (songs, 2018)
• The 90 Minutes or Less Film Festival (theme, 2018)
• The Family Tree (songs, 2017, 2019)
• The Wire Stripped (theme – arranger, singer, musician, 2017)
• Getting Better Acquainted (song, 2017)
• Sex Chat With Vera Chok (theme, 2017)
• Mortified (vocal, 2016)
• The Beef and Dairy Network (song, 2016)
• Hey It’s OK (theme – Glamour Magazine UK, 2016)

• Why Are Computers? (theme, 2013)
• Brain Train (theme, 2012)
• Pappy’s Flatshare Slamdown (song, 2011)
• Sound Women (theme, 2011)
• The Global Lab (theme, 2011)
• Bright Club (theme, 2010)

You can hear instrumental versions of my music on recent episodes of The Allusionist – as well as the theme tune I created.

Live Podcast Music and Performance

• The Allusionist Live (US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, 2017-2019) ; composer, musician, performer, tour manager and writer on show.
• Radio Diaries – Dropped Wrench with Joe Richman (Hearsay Audio Festival, 2019; NYC and Washington DC, 2019); composer and musician.
• The Bugle (US, 2018); arranger and musician.
• Radiotopia Live (US, 2018); musician in house band.
• Third Coast International Audio Awards (Chicago, USA, 2017); composer, MD and musician.
• 99% Allusional (with 99% Invisible and The Allusionist, USA, 2017); composer and musician.