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Chris Baldys

Composer | Programmer | Writer

 

Chris Baldys (a.k.a. little stray) is an artist, musician, songwriter, sound designer, composer, audio engineer, programmer, and writer based in Philadelphia. They have done physical and virtual installation work implementing emotive, immersive, interactive technologies. They don’t see a division between systems and story-telling.

They’ve designed (in collaboration with others), programmed, and sound designed for installation pieces, video games, escape rooms, immersive halloween parties.

They are an experienced audio engineer, having edited, mixed, and mastered releases for a slew of projects including music, podcasts, and aforementioned sound design projects.

They are a member of the digital arts collective Philly AV.

They release music under the name little stray on the This And That Tapes Record Label.

They are half of the meta-pop duo Char 640.

They are half of the moon-themed comedy folk duo Gravey[sic] Train.

They co-host the podcast Sorry/Grateful which is loosely tied to the lyrical legacy of Stephen Sondheim.

If they had something akin to an artist/value statement, it would be something like: “Connection is the whole thing. Making things for others to delight in and, in some way, better knowing one another as a result. That’s my basic goal.”

 

 

Left and Right: Shauna Yorty | Center: Jacob Weinberg

MUSIC

Little stray

little stray [sic] is a solo project of Chris Baldys. little stray has put out a split tape with Murder City Devils front-person Spencer Moody, and opened for Joe Genaro of The Dead Milkmen. little stray is currently on the label This & That Tapes.

“Chris’ music has the sensitivity of Lou Barlow, the intelligence of Julie Doiron, and the complexity of Richard Swift.”

- This & That Tapes Artist Page

Char 640

CHAR 640 is the combined electronic labours of Chris Baldys and Jacob Weinberg. The music is informed by video games such as Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, and MYST. Add a healthy dose of meta-pop and autotune and you have the monstrosity that is CHAR 640.



Video game Music

In 2018, I was asked to compose video game music for a turn-based, snake-themed, dungeon-crawl, rogue-like game called Snakelike. The score consisted of 4 pieces based on a theme song written from the perspective of our leg-less hero. The pieces were composed and implemented so that it gives you aural clues to what type of room you're in and what monsters are lurking about around you.

Featured
Knowledge Lost (Jan. 2019)
Knowledge Lost (Jan. 2019)

Knowledge Lost was an art installation hosted in UART’s Terra Hall building on South Broad St. in Philadelphia. Created and realized by me and John Bezark, it was a eulogy to all the information being deleted off of Wikipedia.

Philly CAM Performance (w/Philly AV)
Philly CAM Performance (w/Philly AV)

Philly AV is a Philadelphia based collective of digital artists. In February of 2020 we were invited to create an hour-long program to be broadcast as a part of PhillyCAM’s Live' Culture Programming.