A little cover of a How To Dress Well tune that I love very much.

Body Fat (How To Dress Well Cover)

Mr. Maps - Nice Fights

I came up with this song on a morning run and recorded and mixed it before lunch. Kind of sounds like I accidentally recorded a Something For Kate song from circa 2000. Which is interesting because this song is about how much has changed since then.

This is one of those things I write which seems to have no viable outlet in my existing projects (of which I already have at least one too many), so if anyone wants to record and release it, lemme know.

05/05/2022 - "Go Back" Demo

Mixed and produced by Turi Agostino

The music belongs to Volcano Choir - go and buy their stuff here: http://volcanochoir.com/#shopify-store

Nonsemble - Byegone (arrangement of Volcano Choir)

Mr. Maps Live at Netherworld, May 2022 - New Song (Working title "Bambam"

Chris Perren
Fibreglass Forestry 						
2016 	
19:00
For Piano, 3 Violins, 3 Violas, 3 Cellos, Drums, Bass Synthesizer

Program Notes
Fibreglass Forestry is a large single-movement work that crystallizes spontaneous and fleeting gestures in the frozen form of fixed notation. In my work I am often caught between two competing interests: a Zen-influenced desire to leave my compositions loosely defined, dynamic, open to chaos; and a perfectionist compulsion to control every detail. Fibreglass Forestry mimics the spontaneity of improvisation within the contrived medium of notated music.

Where my previous compositions have been rather mechanical and procedural in their development, this work was much more intuitive. Its journey is more winding mountain path than machine conveyor belt. Perhaps the influence of having recently become a parent has led me to embrace mess and chaos in both life and art - this work is certainly the most deliberately untidy of my compositions to date. Much of it is the result of a kind of mental improvisation, to which the medium of notation grants powers of alignment and coherence unavailable to true improvisation. 

The title is a play on this tension between the dynamic and the static: a forest constructed with fibreglass could have every leaf perfectly placed, but does not grow; it is a beautiful dead thing. But the metaphor is loose, because regardless of how strictly one tries to dictate a musical work, there is an abundance of life and chaos to be found in the very act of performance. The players, the audience, the space, and the wood and metal of the instruments are alive and organic. They are the true life-givers to a piece of music.

Commissioned by Dots+Loops & premiered by Nonsemble and friends at Dots+Loops Recomposed concert, GoMA, July 2, 2016.

Fibreglass Forestry - Live At GoMA, 02/06/2016

Winterstate

Having come to composition from a background of rock and electronic music, I often go for unusual instrumentations, combining traditional classical instruments with drums, guitars, synths or samplers. Winterstate is my first attempt at the traditional and well-defined form of the piano trio - piano, violin, and cello. This enjoyable challenge was enriched as I developed the work with the Nonsemble trio in mind; I could play on what I love about the unique styles and skills of these three excellent players.

The work was inspired by a solo road trip through the picturesque U.S. state of Vermont. Its melodies and textures pivot meditatively around sets of single repeated notes in the cold and stark high register of the piano. The three movements exhibit a kind of symmetry, with the sparse beginning and ending movement bookending a more fluid and active central movement.

Winterstate (2013)

On Rainy Days is a three-movement work for a solo electric guitar, 5 guitar amps, voice, and a specific configuration of delay effects.

On Rainy Days Be In The Rain, On Windy Days Be In The Wind

Mostly Korg ES-1, EM-1, Volca Keys, and some samples from an 80s VHS tape explaining how to use Sharp microwave ovens.

Software of Seagulls - And Off We Go

A compilation of some of my favourite bits from the various theatre scores I have composed over the last 10 years or so.

The Pillowman

Practical Mechanics a 5-part composition for chamber ensemble by Chris Perren. It is an ode to technological optimism, inspired by the tattered pages of vintage issues of Practical Mechanics Magazine, a home science and technology magazine published between 1933 and 1963. The music combines mathematically generated patterns and mechanical repetition with the warmth of folk harmony and melody, exploring a musical allegory for the threshold where grand laws of science collide with the grounded reality of day-to-day human life. 

Movement III - Hovercraft: Transport of the Future

FOREVER is an audiovisual single. The music track and its accompanying visuals were composed together as an integrated musical work. The music explores a decisively unconventional employment of the ultra-hyped sounds and textures of modern EDM music within erratic and atypical rhythmic structures. The synchronised visuals mirror the starkness of the sounds, with geometric forms morphing playfully with the rhythm, forming an additional layer of the music. 
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdvcAVo0kMc
Bandcamp (audio/video download, remix stems): https://softwareofseagulls.bandcamp.com/releases

Software of Seagulls is Australian composer and video artist Chris Perren.

Software of Seagulls - FOREVER

field recordings, reverb, distortion, loops.

28/05/2020

This is an ode to the Rational Academy, a great Brisbane band, but also to a time in my life and the life of the city. 

I associate this song with the scene I was involved with in the late 2000s-early 2010s, and all the social connections it facilitated. It was really formative for me, this world of bands, DIY venues, and bedroom recording, and I still listen to a lot of the music my friends made back then. 

At the same time as playing in crumbling rooms I was also studying music composition and becoming obsessed with American minimalism and post-minimalism. That was also really influential, and is still a big part of my musical style.

So when I randomly decided to do a cover of 2004, it weirdly just morphed into this strange minimalist mash-up. I hadn't really intended this to mean anything, but it is kind of like a reconciliation of these two very formative paths I was taking in this particular time of life.

2004 (Rational Academy Cover)

Demo for an upcoming Software of Seagulls collaboration with vocal ensemble...

What Was Thrown Out (Demo 24/07/2020)

28/09/2020 (ELECTRONIC MUSIC FOR BUSY PEOPLE)

Part of the "capture/construct" part of my PhD folio.

Features Chelsea McNelliey on clarinet, Briony Luttrell on cello, Sangdae Yand on drums, me on random stuff, and teenagers in Adelaide St on drunken yelling.

Software of Seagulls - Adelaide St.

Australian Composer & Video Artist. 
Father of two, Social Media Defector, Monotasker.
PhD in composition from UQ under Rob Davidson.
Mr. Maps (math-rock)
Nonsemble (chamber/indie-classical)
Software of Seagulls (electronica)
Artless Pursuit (pop)
Various other audiovisual work, notated compositions, and one-off projects.

Chrisperren

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks