Blending hip-hop, R&B, and indie pop, Canadian DJ and producer Ryan Hemsworth has joined forces with Lana Del Rey, Shady Blaze, Quadron, and Tinashe while pursuing parallel joint projects under his own name. He first appeared with the Cover Yr Shame EP in 2010 and the Shady Blaze collaboration Distorted, then delivered his initial solo full-length, Guilt Trips, in 2013. Later dance-pop releases Alone for the First Time and Elsewhere were interspersed with co-billed EPs alongside Lucas and Yurufuwa Gang.
Raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Hemsworth was enrolled at the University of King's College when a bedroom production of his surfaced on a music publication site during class. Heartened by the exposure, he forwarded material to Shady Blaze of Bay Area crew Main Attrakionz, launching their working relationship. Hemsworth served as Attrakionz’s steady engineer and occasional producer, gaining further opportunities with Deniro Farrar, Sole, and others, while Quadron and Lana Del Rey commissioned remix work from him.
After Distorted’s 2011 release as a complete Shady Blaze collaboration, Hemsworth’s solo trajectory advanced with the 2012 Last Words EP on WeDidIt. Guilt Trips, issued by Last Gang in 2013, featured Baths, Tinashe, and Sinead Harnett; its dreamlike hybrid sound earned the 2014 Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year. The concise Alone for the First Time arrived in 2014, followed by the 2015 co-release Taking Flight with Seattle-based producer Lucas. Singles including “Burying the Sun,” “Wait,” and “Commas” paved the way for Elsewhere in 2018, whose guests encompassed E-40, 21 Savage, and G. Perico. He ended the decade with the 2019 Yurufuwa Gang collaboration Circus Circus.
In 2020 Hemsworth issued the Pout EP and Quarter-Life Crisis under the matching alias.
