- Evian Christ's debut album is a passionate homage to his one true love: trance.
- On the back cover of the book Hypnotized, an encyclopaedic document of the rise of trance music, Armin van Buuren explains to Dutch author Arjan Rietveld: "Most don't know that the power of repetition was already understood by classical musicians. Their works can warp you into a trance-like state. Trance was built on those same principles, and its influence on popular music has been widespread ever since."
Joshua Leary's approach to re-contextualising trance music as Evian Christ is vocational at this point, and devilishly effective. Fusing big samples with heavyweight synths, he cuts and sews classic genre tropes to create something less straightforward, flirting with repetition and restraint to bottle euphoria and create stark shifts in atmosphere. Ten years after Kanye West gave him the phone call that propelled Leery into the viewfinders of mainstream rap audiences, his long-overdue debut album, Revanchist, finally lands—a product of love and devotion to the oft-maligned art of trance.
Revanchist has a keen balance of excess and restraint. Leary's Warp label-mate Lorenzo Senni, using very similar reference points, takes a pointillistic and academic approach to trance to achieve distinctive results. The Evian Christ style is maximalist in comparison—pushing the boundaries of elation and then pairing that with restraint, finding the sublime in the process. It's an idea that's been core to Trance Party, the travelling event series that Leary runs alongside some of his closest friends in London (and sometimes further afield). A mixture of irony, high-concept ideas and silly humour, Trance Party has become a community in itself, and a prestigious breeding ground for emerging talent.
Lead single "On Embers" is the best example of Evian Christ's art yet. Here, the same new-school production techniques that won him rap star attention a decade ago are applied to trance's trademark components. Colossal supersaws and fragmented gospel samples meet ferocious noise stabs and heavily processed drums. The results are exhilarating.
Arpeggios hum politely in the background on "The Beach" while a washed-out vocal paints a picture of Balearic '90s hedonism. There's a forlorn and anthemic quality to "Nobody Else," a driving track that features a vocal sample of Clairo's "North." The sound design is on par with the enormous feel of Dutch mega-producers like Rank 1 during the millennium-era heyday of European trance.
On "Xkyrgios," breakcore drums and celestial voices are welded to stadium-grade sub-bass throbs. It's a clever production flex that proves he's above the level of genre pastiche. The title feels like a nod to the notorious Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios, whose sensibilities gel with Leary's personal brand of tongue-in-cheek, sports culture-referencing aesthetics. (Kyrgios claims to be one of the best players in the world and the track's lyrics repeatedly say, "I'm the strongest.") "Silence" is a surprisingly understated version of the Sarah McLachlan-featuring Delirium classic (legendarily remixed by Tiësto). Bladee guests on "Yxgudenm," reciting the hook from DJ Hixxy's 2006 happy hardcore anthem "More & More." These two covers outline both the almost religious grandiosity and the outright silliness that trance can channel—especially with the latter's wacky music video. They play into the lore and aesthetic that has been forged around Trance Party and the Evian Christ project more generally.
In contrast to all the crescendos, "Run Boys Run" features the chord and string melodies from Digital Justice's ambient trance anthem "Theme From It's All Gone Pearshaped," a tear-jerking melodic heater that never fails to set a mood. Leary's touch is gentle, paying homage to an iconic and timeless opening (or closing) tune.
Generally speaking, revanchism—meaning "revenge" in French—is about taking back territory thought to originally belong to someone else. This album is Leary's love letter for the genre that has inspired him for as long as he can remember. Although it will never reach the delirious peaks of the millennium era, trance has been back in vogue for several years now, and he wants to take it back and bring it even higher. Leary's precision, strong sound-engineering and stylistic decisions help elevate his work to the peak of the genre.
Tracklist01. On Embers
02. Yxguden feat. Bladee
03. The Beach
04. Nobody Else
05. Silence
06. Xkyrgios
07. With Me feat. Merely
08. Run Boys Run