I love playing the piano and singing. It's one of my favourite things to do and probably the thing I've spent the most time doing. I wanted to release some new songs of mine (tracks 7, 8 and 9 are brand new and previously unreleased) and also sometimes people ask for piano/vocal versions of other songs of mine, so here is a small collection of those too.

Old songs, new songs, funny songs, sad songs, recorded on my piano in our humble studio (a converted utility closet behind an abandoned carpark)

There’s nothing wrong with living in a share house at the age of 35. Please, in this economy? It’s not sad, it’s practical. But at what point have you lived with the same person for too long?

Childhood friends Lucy and Jane have been living together for what seems like forever. Jane has even become Lucy’s self-appointed life coach - which would be great for Lucy if Jane’s sedentary existence didn’t seem to consist solely of watching crime show re-runs and never going anywhere.

But everything changes when new housemate Alice moves in. A sunny optimist, Alice inspires Lucy to step out of her comfort zone and embrace life anew. But while Lucy’s spirits are revived by the fresh addition to the house, Jane instantly sees Alice’s naive positivity as a threat.

Will the trio be able to resolve their differences? Will Lucy listen to Jane’s cynicism, or embrace Alice’s unwavering hopefulness? Can they find a way to live together? For the sake of their friendship – and finances – let’s hope so.

Share House: The Musical is an adaptation of Jude Perl's 2017 solo show 'Roommates: The Musical'. Featuring a cast of 5 and a 15 piece orchestra, this ambitious work uses the light-hearted metaphor of a sharehouse, to explore how we co-exist with those whose ideas are radically different to our own.

This cast recording was produced leading up to the premiere season of 'Share House' at the Arts Centre Melbourne May 16th - 19th 2024. The album was proudly produced independently by How Do You Do It Productions Pty Ltd

This album features songs that appear in my 6th solo show of the same name. The show was originally going to debut at the 2020 Melbourne Comedy Festival and was originally titled 'Puffy Jacket'. During the various lockdowns, Half the show was re-written and rehearsed with director Desiree Munro, and it became 'Participation Award'. I performed it in 2021 and some people seemed to enjoy it.

The songs 'Hamish' and 'A Day In The Life Of My Digestive System' don't actually appear in the show, but Hamish seemed relevant as it's set in a school environment. The stomach song is not relevant at all, but too bad it's on the album anyway.

The live show opens with a scene loosely set in the 1700s where Frederick the Great and one of his wise men, Johann, basically invent school. I tried to condense that scene into a song, so it could be represented on the album. That song is "Frederick"

As the live show also has a lot of manipulatively nostalgic references to the 90s, I also wanted to pay homage to CDs of that era, especially pop CDs, where at the end of the album there was a stupid remix that was just a sped up version of the single. So whilst "Sport Is Nice (Jasper Remix)" is probably my greatest recording achievement of all time, it sadly also does not appear in the live show

A word from our sponsor - Sugar-Oh's

It is no secret that Sugar-Oh’s have been consistently providing the world with high-quality, delicious products since 1951. And several years ago, we thought to ourselves, “Why don’t we provide high-quality, delicious music to the world too?” And that’s exactly what we did! With the inception of SugarHope Records, the world can finally enjoy the simultaneous consumption of music AND sugar, just as nature intended.

We had a bright young talent on our writing staff who was such a jokester! Oh boy! She’d say things like “remember when you promised that you’d release my album 5 years ago? Any… any word on that?” or “I have some photos of you paying off a safety inspector at one of your factories in Guatemala.” And what do ya know, 3 months later and here we are releasing her debut album.

And what better opportunity to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Sugar-Oh’s than by sharing some of our greatest jingles and products from over the years on this very album! Including the very first jingle, which aired November 17, 1951. Needless to say Jude was ecstatic about this decision to interject these commercials onto her debut album, as are we!

So without further ado, I present to you ‘Jude Perl: Modern Times’. I haven’t personally had a chance to listen to this album, but my personal assistant has informed me that “parts of it are okay”.

Rick Gatorshwartz, CEO, SugarHope Records

'Embrace' is a documentary from body image activist Taryn Brumfitt. For more information on the film and all the wonderful things this organisation does, visit: www.bodyimagemovement.com

'Hungry & Horny' and 'So Hot Right Now' are from Jude's album MODERN TIMES released March 2016. You can listen to the whole album here on bandcamp

For more on the soundtrack, featuring music composed by Benjamin Speed:
https://soundcloud.com/mrbenjaminspeed/sets/embrace-soundtrack