it's petriform's homepage.

pardon my french.

I've wanted to write an update here for a while given that the exciting things I last wrote about have since passed. the first draft of this post was dated late march. welp!

but it turns out that waiting was for the better, because I have more things to share at this time.

first, the follow-ups. to nobody's surprise, Boston Bitdown 2 was incredible. I made a point to catch every single set (after all, I took the third-longest flight offered in the lower 48 to get there -- I'm not going to miss anything!) and delve awash into the feeling of weekend chiptune festivals being Back Back. for my part, I performed in Salem (first time there; it's as bewitching as it's made out to be!) on sunday and couldn't have asked for a better New England debut -- a packed room and a happy collective spirit, which is what it's all about, really. in chiptune you can't and don't always perform in front of an audience that is decidedly There For Chiptune, and it can be a challenge. I've been lucky to have performed my last few sets, including this one, for that audience, and that's one of the reasons Boston Bitdown and anyone else running chiptune events are so important. anyway, you can check my shows page for setlist details. (yes, of course. I DID play "Theme of a Witch in Particular" in Salem, MA.)

additionally, as forecasted in my last post, MAGFest has released their concert video of my chiprave set. I won't belabor the point as I waxed poetic about the experience last time, but this here is the capture of my proudest achievement -- committed to video. for the foreseeable future, the answer to "who is petriform / what's petriform about?" is this video.

now, for what's new. in early may, the stars aligned such that two projects I contributed tracks toward released in the same week.

one was PK CHIPTUNE Ω, an awesome MOTHER 1 chiptune cover album for charity by some like-minded friends now going by "LSD" (Lots of Sound Designers). I contributed a jazz-fusion-inspired cover of "Bein' Friends" that starts off normal than goes further and further off the rails, and a droning stoner/doom metal-inspired cover of "Mt. Itoi". these sound a bit different than my usual fare -- this project gave me an opportunity to flex some muscles that I've been building for some time but haven't had a chance to show off until now. what I'm saying here is that jazz fusion petri is here, here to stay, and has a lot on the mind... stay tuned!

the other was TV-MA's new EP The Age of Decay, toward which I contributed two remixes. these happen to be my first all-new non-chiptune tracks to see release since Relentless Eventful II almost four years ago (I'm not counting the Brown Plaid 10yr celebration A/B sides, those aren't "all-new!"), so it's even more of a special occasion. TV-MA has been one of my favorite artists to hear and see in recent years, so it was both an honor and a pleasure to dive in and put my own spin on these tracks. check it out, and check out TV-MA's whole discography while you're at it!

so that's four new tracks in the span of a week after just over a year of no new releases since Additional Verses. what's next?

well, on march 20, the six-year anniversary of the release of "Dither Beach", I addressed the state of its follow-up, which I've teased before. I won't sprawl that whole post out here, but the tl;dr is that it will be an EP instead, and I hope to offer it this summer. but, to be honest? it's hard to promise that. my heart's not in it like it was five years ago, but what I have, my heart WAS in at the time, and it IS good, and it DOES deserve to be heard, so I'm getting it over the finish line. maybe that's not the best way to hype you up for new music from me, but it's the truth. if you liked "Dither Beach" and its predecessors, I'm confident that you'll like it, and I hope you look forward to it. simple as that!

speaking of its predecessors, "Don't Worry, You're Great!" celebrates 10 years this august; and you'd better believe I'm not letting that pass by uncelebrated. I fucking played "Bwark?" again this year. more to come.

and, as always, my scattered ass is working on new albums other than anything I mentioned above. not much to say about those yet other than that my long-distance-travel live performance obligations are out of the way for now and it's back to the lab. I'll never stop.

thank you for reading! until next time!

(yes, "bloging". don't tell me you forgot about the ultimate bloging? anyone??)

so! how's things? 🫠

I'm going to go out on a limb and and figure you don't need me to pontificate at length on the state of the world. suffice it to say we have an understanding.

putting that aside from this space, some cool things have happened since my last post here. my VB ❌ GB album "Familial Verses" released shortly after my last post. I got to play a release party for it at that year's MAGWest, playing the album in full; the first time I've ever had an album release or performed an album live from front to back. people seem to have liked it! surasshu (who I imagine needs no introduction to most folks reading this) wrote some very nice words about it a little bit after it came out, which I really appreciated, and in general lots of people have been telling me in person how much they enjoyed it. can't want for any more than that! thank you!

it's been fun performing my cover of ELO's "Prologue / Twilight" around the release of "Familial Verses"; I'd been doing so since a little before my last post (first played june 2024, apparently). I had so much fun that I ended up fulfilling another long-time goal of mine -- doing a full cover album. I arranged "Additional Verses" inside the "Familial Verses" project file; it came out this past April and as we speak I consider myself on tour for it. I played the "Additional Verses" cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star" on the main stage of last year's MAGWest (see their footage here!), which is a sentence that would have knocked me flat on my ass if you'd told it to me at the time of my last post. similar ass-knockings might follow if you told me that 1) a new annual, weekend-long chiptune festival has arisen in Boston and I'm lined up to play this year's installment, and/or that 2) I'd be playing the chiprave at MAGFest 2026!

yes, the chiprave! I'm writing this after returning from MAG, having made the most difficult setlist decisions of my life and having tried my best to lay down the best 30 minute set I could muster in front of, assuredly, the largest audience I've ever performed for on, assuredly, the biggest stage there is for live chiptune music. and not only that, but I got to share that experience among a lineup that included dear chip friends of mine like DonutShoes and Boy Without Batteries, to name just a couple. it's no secret that the chiprave was something I'd aspired toward for quite some time, and I couldn't have asked for anything more out of the experience. I'm so, so grateful toward all MAG staff, volunteers, SBThree on the visuals, and, of course, the friends who were right there with me ("Bwark" friends included!). please look out for MAG's video of my set; they will post it eventually. it'll take some time for this to settle in, but I can't imagine it being anything other than my proudest achievement when it comes to live performance.

on a different note, regarding this site, I've overhauled a few things. tumblr fucked up my old EPK (completely memory holing the blog I was using for it when I tried to edit it. great!), so there's a work-in-progress carrd on that sidebar link instead. also, I've migrated my "shows" page off of my main tumblr onto this site; this was way overdue. the "music" page has also been overhauled for better legibility, an updated flowchart, and the inclusion of new albums since the last update. enjoy these new experiences, or something!

it also came out yesterday that Bandcamp will no longer be tolerating generative AI music. my thoughts on this (positive, I assure you) are succinct.

welp, Boston's up next. after that? it's anyone's guess, and with the things I have brewing here and there, I think I'll be doing all right at keeping you guessing. until then!

welp, it was fun while it lasted! cohost will functionally cease on october 1st. sucks! as a friend of mine put it, this was the Good Website. you've almost certainly read more eulogies, anecdotes, grievances, and shade thrown at cohost since the announcement a couple of days ago, so i won't bore you with my own other than to say that, although not free of flaws, it was far and away better than the alternatives, and it sucks that it's going away. a better internet is possible, kind of, maybe.

neocities, of course, remains a Good Website, and regrettably, i've been neglecting it. with the state of the internet these days as it is, that's gotta change.

as i write this, my Virtual Boy x Game Boy album "Familal Verses" is imminent; it'll launch within days of this update. accordingly, i've redesigned my neocities in alignment with the new album's colors and logos and Branding™ or whatever you wanna call it. more importantly, i've made sure all the content pages here actually, you know, have content. there's more content to come, though. like many of you, i tire of hearing, reading, and typing the word "content", so i'll stop there. "The Site Will Be Gooder Soon 👍!"

things off-neocities that i'm working on include a patreon-style subscription (platform tbd). i was looking to cohost for this. i want a place where i can write long-form stuff about my processes and perspectives on my own work and whatnot, as well as relevant production tutorials and maybe exclusive streams? and i can't imagine an audience for that other than those who are generously inclined to support what i do. i also want, ideally, to just turn around and spend proceeds from that on others' patreons or similar ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ art makes the world go round, babey !! so look forward to that soonish maybe.

that's it for now. fuck the internet; i love the internet.