Alonetone Features: tpunkt

There is a cutoff hovering just above a meter and another just above two. Anyone whose growth ceases before or beyond these two lines cannot be taken seriously. Tomas Spencer skirts the upper line and he knows it.

It shouts in his recordings, the quality of which is well, shitty. But, they fall just inside the blurry boundary that separates the raw from the un-listenable. If he is oblivious or has tremendously large balls, I can’t say; he showers with the door closed.

Born of British parents and brought up in between England, Germany and Switzerland, he speaks both German and English fluently and graduated from the University of Plymouth with an honors degree in Theatre and Visual Arts.

He began making music in 2001 after buying a second hand guitar and teaching himself how to play. Along the way he picked up bits of piano, bobs of harmonica, and documented his experiments on a 4 track recorder. tpunkt was born.

In 2006 he joined with Brooklynite, Oliver Ralli to form Distructo. Together they gained access to a friend’s rehearsal room. Armed with the 4 track recorder and a nights supply of Sternburg to see them through the overdubbing of xylophone, guitar, vocals, drums and accordion, they emerged with what would come to be known as the Distructo Tapes.

After the tapes hit the streets, Distructo became an overnight sensation. Their names ricocheted between buildings in the northernmost section of Kreuzberg. They were mobbed on the street and harassed in their homes. Even have a ping pong match without the ball being interrupted in its trajectory, by the collective breath of the many on-looking admirers, was impossible. It became too much.

Again, the friends armed themselves with Sternburg and sought refuge in their flat. This time though, they went not to create, but to survive. They hoped to hold out ‘til morning; joining together in prayer and speculation, while taking time to sit down for the last known interview with Distructo.

As the morning full of hope, finally spilled over, dispersing ghost and bat before it, boasting wretched commerce and infernal light; it faltered some at Kreuzburg where it fell through the blinds onto the blood shot eyes and bony fingers of the once great pair. It waited with them only long enough to gather the news then hurried on its way, calling to its admirers like a 6th grade scamp. And when the people woke, the whispers hung from their heartstrings as the news passed sharply over silent lips. Distructo was no more.

Oliver Ralli returned to Brooklyn and Tomas sat on the balcony, looking at the river until the day began to fog, shrouding the far bank as well as his past until neither one was certain to be anything other than his imagination.

Tomas went back to his music, alone. He became tpunkt once more, and in the ensuing year and 6 months produced such gems as ‘My Sweet Darlin” and ‘The Misfits’

When asked how his new recording differ from the Distructo mold, Tomas answers defiantly. “Distructo? Man, Distructo was just a fad, that guy, whatever his name was, he didn’t have “it”, you know, it’s something you’re born with, not something you can leech out of your friends.”

Whatever leeching has been done, Tomas is far from sucked dry. The music of tpunkt exudes life, the best kind of life, the kind with “it”.

Tomas Spencer is also an accredited actor with roles in film, television and on the stage.

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