Biography
Joshua Leary, operating out of Cheshire, England, crafts abstract hip-hop laced with industrial textures alongside trance-inflected experimental club sounds under the Evian Christ moniker. Initial notice arrived with Kings & Them, his 2012 atmospheric instrumental hip-hop collection, after which he supplied productions for Kanye West, Travis Scott, and Danny Brown. Nearly a decade of emphasis on art installations and events, among them his TranceParty club nights, preceded the 2023 arrival of his debut album Revanchist on Warp.
The son of a trance DJ, Leary grew up in a small town near Liverpool. Eight tracks captured in his garage on Cubase formed Kings & Them, issued as a free digital download in February 2012 via Tri Angle, the label also home to How to Dress Well and Clams Casino; a vinyl pressing followed several months afterward. Dummy magazine received Duga-3, his continuous mix of original ambient pieces prompted by accounts of a Soviet radar installation, which later surfaced on limited-edition Tri Angle vinyl for Record Store Day 2013. One of the leaner selections from Kanye West’s Yeezus, the track “I’m in It,” included his contributions alongside five other producers, with the album appearing shortly before his 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival set in Chicago. The four-track Waterfall EP, highlighted by the pungent “Salt Carousel,” came out on Tri Angle the following March.
Production credits also extended to projects by Tinashe, Le1f, Travis Scott, Danny Brown, and additional artists. His TranceParty events helped ignite a trance revival, hosting hip-hop and electronic performers that included Scott, Bladee, SOPHIE, Arca, and A.G. Cook. Leary and David Rudnick examined the genre further through the art installations The Trance War (1998-Ongoing) at ICA London in 2015 and Re:Load at the Moscow International Biennale in 2017, each combining archival materials with new works. Warp issued “Ultra,” his first solo outing in six years and a euphoric ambient trance piece, in 2020. He also joined Visionist and grime emcee K9 for the track “Abyss.” Revanchist, a full-length that merges his trance and experimental hip-hop approaches, appeared in 2023.
The son of a trance DJ, Leary grew up in a small town near Liverpool. Eight tracks captured in his garage on Cubase formed Kings & Them, issued as a free digital download in February 2012 via Tri Angle, the label also home to How to Dress Well and Clams Casino; a vinyl pressing followed several months afterward. Dummy magazine received Duga-3, his continuous mix of original ambient pieces prompted by accounts of a Soviet radar installation, which later surfaced on limited-edition Tri Angle vinyl for Record Store Day 2013. One of the leaner selections from Kanye West’s Yeezus, the track “I’m in It,” included his contributions alongside five other producers, with the album appearing shortly before his 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival set in Chicago. The four-track Waterfall EP, highlighted by the pungent “Salt Carousel,” came out on Tri Angle the following March.
Production credits also extended to projects by Tinashe, Le1f, Travis Scott, Danny Brown, and additional artists. His TranceParty events helped ignite a trance revival, hosting hip-hop and electronic performers that included Scott, Bladee, SOPHIE, Arca, and A.G. Cook. Leary and David Rudnick examined the genre further through the art installations The Trance War (1998-Ongoing) at ICA London in 2015 and Re:Load at the Moscow International Biennale in 2017, each combining archival materials with new works. Warp issued “Ultra,” his first solo outing in six years and a euphoric ambient trance piece, in 2020. He also joined Visionist and grime emcee K9 for the track “Abyss.” Revanchist, a full-length that merges his trance and experimental hip-hop approaches, appeared in 2023.
Albums
Singles
