Chris Strouth

Chris Strouth
Chris Strouth in 2014
Background information
Born	(1968-07-28) July 28, 1968 (age 49)
Origin	Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Genres	Electronic, new music, ambient, indie rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer, producer, filmmaker, writer, multimedia artist
Years active	1986–present
Labels	UltraModern Records, Innova Recordings, Twin/Tone
Associated acts	Paris 1919, Future Perfect Sound System

Chris Strouth is an American, Minneapolis based musician, producer, writer and filmmaker, who has been active since 1986, most notably as the founder and organizer of 1990s/2000s electronica collective Future Perfect Sound System, and most recently as the bandleader and composer for experimental/electronic band Paris 1919. His behind-the-scenes production work includes Indianapolis multimedia artist Stuart Hyatt's Grammy-nominated album The Clouds. Strouth also gained national attention in 2009 when he received a life-saving kidney transplant from a donor who connected with him on Twitter, which is believed to be the first such transplant arranged entirely through social networking.

Strouth has been heavily involved in the Twin Cities arts and music community since 1986. His early work included curating multimedia events incorporating art and electronic music at spaces including Rifle Sport Gallery, Hair Police and Red Eye Collaboration.

As a performer, Strouth has played in a range of styles including techno, jazz, and punk. He has also worked frequently as an organizer of entire scenes of bands, typified by the electronica collective Future Perfect Sound System, which he founded in 1995. The collective was an important early exponent of electronic music and rave culture in the Midwest, receiving favorable comparisons to Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia events. Future Perfect performed frequently at First Avenue nightclub, the Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, and other galleries, with showcases that sometimes drew more than 30 performers, and released two albums, 1997's Music For Listening and 2001's The Nature of Time.

Strouth founded another musical collective, Paris 1919, shortly before his diagnosis with kidney disease in 2009. Strouth's compositions for the band often deal with his illness and recovery. For instance, the short piece "Blood Mountain," is about Strouth's experience on dialysis, and bases its core rhythms on those of dialysis machines. Paris 1919 began as a solo, studio-bound experiment in sonic collages; Strouth has described the music as sounding "weird and chaotic and structureless and purposely off-beat" but notes that it is also created from a painstaking process which may involve more than 1,000 edits. It grew into a semi-improvisational live band with a rotating membership, which has performed a series of multimedia shows combining music, theater and dance in immersive environments, often working with choreographer Deborah Jinza Thayer. 2014's "Antarctica" used the theme of an ice cave to explore Strouth's journey through his kidney ailment and recovery. The same year’s "Safe As Houses" placed both performers and audience in a giant dollhouse as a metaphor for the housing crisis and Strouth’s own loss of his home the year before.