Per Se is a poetic pop music group from Hong Kong, founded in 2012. The phrase “per se” means “fundamental, intrinsic” in Latin, which means that their music can be self-explanatory, and they hope not to use the name of the group to frame the style and boundaries of their creation. Members Sandy and Stephen are in a relationship. In an interview, they said that they initially wrote songs for Per Se purely for dating, but gradually it became difficult to distinguish when it was dating and when it was work. The daily life of love has become the daily life of work, but they have never thought of creating separately.
In 2009, Sandy was a freshman in college. As a keyboardist, she joined the band that Stephen was also a member of at the time. Sandy became curious about Stephen because of his music and had the idea of working with him. Stephen was also attracted to Sandy because of her musical talent. When the original band disbanded, Stephen and Sandy wanted to form a new band, but they couldn’t find the right teammates. The creative inspiration could not stop, so the two simply wrote songs under the name of Per Se, initially just as a side project. As they came from bands, they were used to writing songs together, and they found the right melody for Per Se in their own improvisations. Stephen was responsible for most of the English lyrics. In terms of arrangement, they each contributed their own work. In addition to the instruments they were good at, Stephen was also responsible for the arrangement of drums and bass, while Sandy was responsible for piano and synthesizer. Over the years, they gradually developed a tacit understanding in the creation of Per Se .
Per Se released their first EP of the same name in 2013. In 2014, they won the gold medal of Tom Lee Music’s “Original Sound 2014” band competition and the CASH original song award, and released their first digital single “Petals” at the end of the year. They also launched a crowdfunding campaign online in 2016 and released the music album “Conundrum”. In 2017, they signed a contract with the record company Frenzi Music and became full-time musicians.
In 2017 they also released their first Cantonese single “Family Change”. Stephen mentioned that he was inspired by the musical “Momentary Utopia” and came up with the idea of writing Cantonese songs, because he believed that some songs can only express Cantonese songs. In 2018, they released the concept album “ends”, with “end” as the main concept of the album, exploring the various ends in life and the hope before the end. In 2019, they released the album “Ripples, reflections and everything in between”, with “finding the definition of time” as the concept. In 2020, he won the 10th place in the 2020 Top Ten Music Awards for his song “Smash the Candy House”. In 2021, he released “Character/Character”, which is based on fairy tales and explores different aspects of human nature. In the same year.
In 2022, the two founded their own music label Dystoland. The name comes from dystopia, which is reminiscent of a theme park, meaning to find your own paradise in dystopia. In the same year, Per Se launched the first project of the new company, with the theme of doomsday, and released the album “deca”, which was the tenth anniversary project of the band. In the same year, two “the deca dance” concerts were held at Star Hall. In 2023, the single “The Last Confused God” was used to launch a campus memory theme music project and toured university campuses. In April 2024, the two attended an event at Hysan Place in Causeway Bay and announced that they would join Sony Music as singers. Singer Huang Yan from the same company also attended the event to congratulate them. At the event, the two also performed their first single “Maybe There Is No Future God” after joining the group.